


Miasma

by ProbablytherealDeaththeKid



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Control Freaks, Gen, Mind Control, Mind Manipulation, POV Third Person, Panic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 41,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24174739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProbablytherealDeaththeKid/pseuds/ProbablytherealDeaththeKid
Summary: When Freakshow is broken out of prison, he teams up with Walker to repair the shattered scepter that grants the wielder the ability to control ghosts. Together, the two form a diabolical plan and agree to go after the one ghost who has ruined both of their lives.
Relationships: Danny Fenton & Jack Fenton, Danny Fenton & Jazz Fenton, Danny Fenton & Maddie Fenton, Danny Fenton & Tucker Foley & Sam Manson, Danny Fenton & Vlad Masters, None of these are ships, slight Danny/Sam
Comments: 8
Kudos: 83





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I actually have asthma, and whenever I say the tittle of this fic to MetasActReon, he freaks out a little and starts laughing because I say it like "my asthma". 
> 
> Anyways, timeline-wise, this fic takes place instead of "Reality Trip". It has a similar start with Lydia breaking Freakshow out of prison, so that's why I place it there. Hope you enjoy!

The crashing and banging caught his attention, getting him to look up from his book. He looked through the bars of his cell door as the screaming continued. All at once, a prison guard dropped through the ceiling, the cells all along the hallway slid open with a loud buzzer, and an old friend phased through the wall to greet him. 

Freakshow smirked at Lydia. “Thank you, my dear,” he whispered as she held out her hand. He took it without hesitation, and the pair flew out of the prison, ghosting through the walls.  The two laughed at the chaotic scene below: the guards running around, SWAT teams arriving one after the other, quickly followed by press vans.

After a while of flying, the two eventually drifted over an all-too familiar place. “Wait!” Freakshow shouted as they glided over a bridge. The bridge where he lost everything. “Let’s check down below and see if the scepter is still there.”

Lydia nodded and dropped gradually closer to the ground. The moment his feet landed, Freakshow scoured the ground for signs of the red staff. He found it. The staff itself seemed to be fine, but the crystal ball at the top was shattered into thousands of little pieces. Freakshow groaned in frustration. There was no fixing it.

Lydia suddenly went into a defensive stance and quickly went out of Freakshow’s view. “It’s still savable,” a voice with a heavy southern drawl said, getting Freakshow to turn around.

He looked up at the tall man from his position on the dirt ground. It was easy to tell that the man was a ghost. He had solid, bright green eyes, and he was all in white. Even his skin was as white as paper. “I take it you have the means to do that?” Freakshow questioned as he stood up, the red staff still gripped in his hand. He received a nod from the ghost. “What would you require in return?"

“What I want is simple,” he explained, “the destruction of a certain half ghost boy named Danny Phantom.” Freakshow growled the name. “And rumor has it that that staff was able to control him. I want to turn his mind and body into his own personal prison. Torture him a little before I finally kill him. In the meantime, you’ll be able to do whatever you want with that staff, as long as I get to watch Phantom suffer.”

Freakshow and Lydia shared a look before Freakshow smiled. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Mister…”

“Walker,” the white ghost finished. “The name’s Walker.”


	2. Where Is He?

"I'm sorry, Mister and Missus Fenton, but there's nothing we can do at this point," the officer informed, his voice low and cautious. "He's been missing for over a month."

"That doesn't mean anything!" Maddie cried. "My baby is still alive! I know he is!"

"That may be, but we have to declare his case cold," the officer muttered. "We've gotten no leads at all since this case started. That must mean that he ran off of his own accord."

"But a lot of kids his age do that, and they're usually home in time for dinner!" Jack countered.

"I'm sorry, but we cannot continue to allocate resources to a month-long cold case when we have leads on plenty of others," the officer apologized as his pager went off. He unclipped his pager from his belt and glanced at it before putting it back where it was before. "I have to go. You can keep looking for your son on your own, and I, personally, will do the same, but the police department can't help until we get some new leads."

The officer stood from his chair and walked out the door of the Fenton home, leaving Jack, Maddie, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker in stunned silence. After a moment, Maddie choked on a sob and leaned into her husband. "Oh, what're we gonna do, Jack? Where is he?"

"I don't know, Maddie," Jack whispered, rubbing her back comfortingly. "But we're not going to give up. We _will_ find him."

Sam nudged Tucker and glanced at Jazz. She gestured towards the kitchen, and the three friends got up and silently went to the other room. Once the husband and wife were out of earshot, Sam turned to Tucker and Jazz and said, "Okay, we're all thinking the same thing, right?"

"He _had_ to have gotten into some kind of ghost trouble," Tucker agreed.

"There's no way that he'd run away. Even if he was acting really strange before all of this," Jazz added. "But what if he got caught up in something really dangerous?"

"Yeah, like Walker's prison," Tucker suggested.

"I was thinking Vlad," Sam offered.

"He has kidnapped Danny before," Tucker agreed.

"I'm thinking that we take the Specter Speeder this weekend and fly up to Wisconsin to see if he's at Vlad's castle before we scour the Ghost Zone looking for him," Sam said.

"Yeah," Jazz agreed. "We need to eliminate Vlad as a possibility before we just wander around aimlessly in unknown territory."

"Okay, so while Mister and Missus Fenton are out looking for Danny tomorrow, let's take the speeder from downstairs. Sound good?"

Tucker and Jazz nodded as Maddie and Jack came into the kitchen. "I ordered a couple of pizzas for us for dinner," Maddie said apologetically. "I'm sorry, but I just don't have the energy to cook tonight."

"That's okay, Missus Fenton. We totally understand," Tucker dismissed.

"We just can't thank you two enough for all your help this past month," Jack added as Maddie fell into a chair at the table.

"It's not a problem at all, Mister Fenton," Sam said. "Afterall, he's our friend. We would be looking for him whether you asked us to help or not."

The married couple smiled at them as the doorbell rang.

* * *

The next morning, Jack and Maddie were back out on the streets in the RV. They scanned the same street corners and alleyways that they have for the past month. They were going to go over to the next city this time. Surely, he had to be there.

Jack had tried to keep Maddie's spirits up, but she was fearing the worst: that Danny had died or was caught up in some sort of human trafficking operation or something equally terrible. "Maybe we should call Vlad again," Maddie suggested.

"We already called him again this morning," Jack reminded. "We don't want to bother him too much. That, and he already said that he had a private investigator looking for him."

Maddie sighed and slumped back into her seat.

After a while, Jack muttered, "That's it," He pulled the RV over to the side of the road. He parked the vehicle and got out.

"Jack, what're you doing?" Maddie wondered.

"I tried to keep this possibility from you, Maddie, but I fear that it can no longer be avoided," Jack informed as he pulled out a green and silver device from his bag.

"The Boo-merang?" Maddie wondered.

"Yes, Maddie, the Boo-merang." Jack looked her square in the eye. "Think about it. That Ghost Kid is always hanging around our family, so he clearly has some sort of interest in us."

"You think he took Danny."

"Yes, I do, and if that ghostly abomination is in the human plane, this device here will find him."

Jack unhooked his seat belt, went to the front of the RV and readied the Boo-merang. Jack reeled his arm back and then launched the ghost-hunting device as far as he could. The Boo-merang flew a few feet through the air before dropping on the ground. Jack growled in frustration and marched back over to it. He picked the device up and threw it again, only receiving the same result.

Jack sighed in disappointment before walking back over to the RV and getting inside. "All this means is that the Ghost Boy is not in our world. After we check the next city, we'll head into the Ghost Zone with the Specter Speeder and check there."

"Okay," Maddie muttered, turning to look out the window as Jack started up the RV again.

* * *

"Ready to go?" Jazz wondered as she opened the door.

"Yep. All set," Tucker responded, proudly displaying his PDA.

"Alright. Let's go." Jazz opened the door a little wider to allow them through.

The three raced down to the lab and loaded into the Specter Speeder. Tucker started up the engines and opened the exit hatch. Sam took over piloting and guided the Speeder out of the lab and outside. She then forced it to its highest possible speed and took off towards Wisconsin. It took several hours, but eventually, they arrived at Plasmius's castle. Sam landed the speeder, and Tucker shut it down. They all got out and went up to the front door. Jazz banged on the large wooden door until her hand hurt and kept going. "You better get out here, Vlad!" she demanded. "We need to talk to you, right now!"

The door was ripped open and Vald stepped out, grabbing Jazz's hand. "I cannot focus on my work with you banging on the door like that!" he yelled, throwing her hand away. "Now, what do you three want?"

"We know you have Danny!" Sam shouted, activating the blaster in her watch.

Vlad looked them all over, his eyebrows creased in confusion. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I haven't even seen Daniel since that thing with Danielle."

"Yeah, that's a likely story!" Jazz countered.

"Yes, it is, actually," Vad said calmly. "I do not 'have Daniel'. Now, go away." Vlad started to close the door, but Jazz wedged her foot in the way. Vlad opened the door again and stared at her, clearly irritated.

"If you don't have my brother, then who does?" Jazz questioned.

Vlad groaned.

"We don't have time to mess around, Plasmius," Tucker added. "Danny's been missing for a month, and we have no idea where he is."

Vlad kicked Jazz's foot out of the way of the door. "I do not have Daniel, and since he's been missing, I have had a marvelous time focusing on my work. I don't particularly care if he is found or not, so go. Away." He slammed the door closed.

The three turned around to face each other. "Do you believe him?" Jazz wondered.

"Not really," Tucker said.

"And what work did he need to focus on?" Sam added.

"It has to be related to Danny," Tucker suggested.

"Maybe we should come back when he's either asleep or not at the castle and look for Danny ourselves," Jazz offered, receiving a nod from the other two.

* * *

They haven't found him. But he just saw something about Danny Phantom in the news recently. Something wasn't right. This is more than just the silly teen angst of running away from home.

Vald slowly walked back up the stairs and into his office as he wrestled with himself. He had always had certain fatherly feelings for the boy. He was young and needed guidance, and if something bad had truly happened to him, he couldn't help but feel worried. But he would continually force it down. Daniel had rejected him as a father, so there was no point in feeling protective of him.

Vlad spent the entire day pacing, trying to dissipate his worry, but as he lay in bed that night, he couldn't help it anymore. He glanced towards the local newspaper on his bedside table and reread the headline: _Amity Park's Danny Phantom in Wisconsin?_ That paper was from almost two weeks ago.

Just one look. Just one flight over Wisconsin and that's it. He didn't owe Daniel anything. This was just to make this gnawing feeling in his stomach go away.


	3. Investigating

After they left Vlad's castle, Sam, Tucker, and Jazz flew the Specter Speeder to a gas station a few miles away and got some snacks to eat and pass the time. Jazz texted her parents to tell them that the three were looking for Danny and not to worry. When the sun set, Tucker spoke up, checking his watch. "He should be asleep by now. Let's go."

Sam and Jazz nodded, and Sam started the Speeder back up. When they arrived back at Vlad’s castle, Sam landed the Speeder and shut it down. The trio each picked up an ecto weapon and cautiously approached the door.

Tucker ran up to the door and took out his PDA. He hooked it up to the electronic security pad next to the door and unlocked it. Jazz opened the door, and Sam entered with her ecto-gun at the ready. Jazz slipped through the door, and Tucker went in after her, closing the door behind them as quietly as he could.

"I feel like a SEAL team," Tucker quietly exclaimed as he stowed his PDA.

Jazz ignored the comment. "Should we split up or stick together?" 

"Stick together," Sam instantly answered.

"Yeah, Jazz," Tucker added. "Never split the party."

Sam rolled her eyes and groaned in annoyance. "Let's start with the labs," she suggested.

"Right," Jazz agreed.

The trio silently moved through the mansion until they found the smaller upstairs lab. The three split up, and each searched a different part of the room for any sign of Danny. After a while, they all came back together with a collective sigh. "There's nothing here," Tucker said, his voice low with disappointment. 

There was a brief moment of silence before Jazz spoke up. "If I remember right, the way to his secret underground lab is through his private study."

"Can you take us there?" Tucker demanded, suddenly hopeful again. 

"Yeah. This way." Jazz gestured out the door.

Sam and Tucker followed Jazz through the maze of corridors until they arrived at the doors of Vlad's study. "In here," Jazz said, opening the door. "Vlad messed with the football statue on the right to open it."

Tucker nodded and went forward, reaching for the statue. He pulled on it, and the fireplace split in half, revealing a long, descending staircase. Sam charged her ecto-gun as she went forward. 

“I’ll stay up here and guard the entrance,” Jazz offered, receiving a nod from both Tucker and Sam as they continued down the stairs.

Sam and Tucker fanned out when they reached the bottom of the stairs. They looked for any sign of Danny or that Vlad was experimenting on him like he did during the whole Dani thing. But there wasn’t a single sign. Not a strand of white or black hair, no torn pieces of clothing or drops of ectoplasm. “There’s nothing here, Sam,” Tucker voiced after a while.

Sam groaned in frustration, nearly throwing her ecto-gun to the ground. “He  _ has  _ to be here! Where else could he be!”

Tucker thought for a minute. “Maybe for once it wasn’t Vlad,” he suggested. “Remember that Walker is after him, trying to imprison him. Maybe Walker took him to the Ghost Zone.”

Sam glanced around the lab again before hesitantly nodding.

  
  


Jazz paced in front of the entrance to Vlad’s underground lab, no longer able to hide her anxiety now that she was alone. Vlad had tried to pit her and Danny against each other the last time she was here. They haven’t come across him yet, but Danny has such highly sensitive hearing that he complains about her singing in the shower when he’s downstairs. Who’s to say that Vlad’s hearing isn’t the same? One wrong move, and they could wake him, and she had no idea what he’d do to them.

After almost a half hour a crashing noise made Jazz jump. She raised her ecto-gun and carefully approached the door of the study to peak outside. She instantly turned back around when she saw Vlad in his ghost form come out from another room. She quietly ran down the stairs of the secret lab and got Sam and Tucker’s attention. 

“What is it?” Tucker wondered.

“It’s Vlad,” Jazz breathed, terrified that he would hear them from upstairs. “He’s awake and in ghost form already.”

The other two tensed. “We gotta get out of here,” Tucker announced as if the other two didn’t already know. 

Tucker started to rush towards the stairs, but Sam grabbed his shoulder to stop him. “Quietly,” she instructed, putting a finger to her lips.

Tucker nodded, and the three silently but quickly moved back up the stairs. Jazz closed the fireplace that led to the lab as Tucker and Sam cleared the hall outside the door. “He there?” Jazz whispered as she approached them. 

Sam shook her head, and they continued through the door, closing it back up to leave it just like they found it. They clung to the wall as they snuck through the house and back to the front door. Sam was on point, and Jazz was last in line, constantly glancing behind them. Eventually, they reached the front door, and slipped through it. Tucker hooked up his PDA to the security system again and reengaged the front door lock. The three jumped back into the Specter Speeder and started it back up again, taking off into the sky. 

They all let out a sigh of relief when Vlad’s mansion was out of view. “How didn’t he hear us?” Sam wondered aloud.

“I don’t know,” Jazz answered. “Maybe he was busy?”

“And I don’t want to stick around to find out,” Tucker added.

“So I take it that you didn’t find Danny down there?” Jazz asked, her voice so grave that her question was a statement.

Tucker shook his head. “Not a sign of him.”

“We’re thinking that Danny might have been taken to the Ghost Zone,” Sam informed.

Jazz nodded. “At this point, I’m willing to try anything.”


	4. Subdued

How long has it been again? He told him to forget, and he did. He forgot how long its been like this: all red and hazy. Something told him that it wasn’t always like this, but he couldn’t remember any different, and trying to look back only made his head hurt. 

It didn’t matter. Nothing did except for what he was told to do. His master has started up a new business under a different name. He’s putting the last touches on the ring alongside another ghost.

His task changes rather abruptly. A panicked message in his mind. He instantly drops what he’s doing and takes off into the sky. He and the other ghost land in the field a few meters away from the tent, discovering their master getting back up from the ground.

“Don’t just stand there! Get him!” he ordered, glaring at the small group of ghosts. 

“Daniel, focus,” an unfamiliar voice pleads.

All of the ghosts turn towards the voice finding a tall, blue-skinned ghost with pointed, black hair. The ghosts launched themselves towards him and swarmed, firing ecto-blasts every which way.  The tall ghost blocked almost every shot and dodged the others. Eventually, each ghost found themselves hog-tied in a pink ecto-rope, and their master shouted, “No! Get back up!”

The enemy ghost marched up towards their master, glaring at him. “So this is how you’re doing it, then?” he wondered. “That red scepter?”

“Yes,” their master breathed. “And soon, you’ll fall to it, too.”

The blue-skinned ghost smirked and gathered deep purple ecto-energy into his hand. He fired it towards their master a second later. Every bound ghost jerked inside of their binds to try to defend their master, but they weren’t fast enough. Lydia threw herself in front of the purple ray and instantly fizzled away, the residual energy from the blast hitting their master in the gut.

Their master collapsed to the ground, releasing his hold on the scepter. The new ghost picked it up and the others’ struggling stopped. He held the scepter, and there was nothing coming from their old master, so this new, blue-skinned ghost was their new master. 

Their new master waved his hand towards them, and their pink bonds disappeared. He turned towards them and pointed the scepter at the only white-haired ghost. “I release everyone here except you,” he announced.

The other ghosts gasped as their red eyes faded to green. They held their heads as if they were dizzy. A female ghost dressed in red with her hair pulled back into a neat ponytail stumbled up to Vlad and grabbed his arms. “Thank you,” she breathed. “Thank you for freeing us.”

Normally, Vlad would have shoved her off, but he didn’t care to. His eyes were on Daniel. This scepter and Daniel’s empty, red-eyed look were all the proof he needed to know that Daniel never left of his own free will, though he never thought he did in the first place.

As the other newly freed ghosts flew away, Vlad glanced down at the man he indirectly blasted. Freakshow is what he called himself, wasn’t it? He crouched down and turned the man over onto his back. His eyes were half open, and he wasn’t breathing.

Vlad looked back at Daniel and stood, gently ordering, “Come.”

Vlad took off into the sky and looked back, seeing Daniel follow him without hesitation. Vlad felt a faint pang of guilt for not letting the boy go. Based on the other ghosts’ reactions, whatever it was that the scepter was doing to him must be making him suffer, but he knew that Daniel would not follow him of his own accord.

The flight wasn’t too long, but the sun was beginning to rise by the time they made it back. Vlad landed on the roof of his castle, followed by Daniel. Vlad looked straight at him and voiced, “Daniel, I release you from this scepter’s hold.”

Daniel looked somewhat shocked. His eyes widened and his eyebrows raised. He shook his head and put a hand to his temple. When he opened his eyes, the red color had faded back to green, and Vlad couldn’t believe that he was relieved. Usually, seeing that pair of bright green eyes was a nuisance.

Vlad was about to phase through the roof to put the scepter in his lab for study, but then Daniel groaned. Vlad glanced back up at him and almost gasped as Daniel changed back to his human form faster than his transformation rings could keep up with. Daniel stumbled and finally lost his balance. Vlad instinctively caught him, dropping the scepter in the process. Daniel took shallow, pained breaths as Vlad held him. He grabbed at his midsection like he had been stabbed. He was so skinny that Vlad could count his ribs through the holes in his tattered and dirt-covered t-shirt,

Vlad phased through the roof and rapidly flew through the castle until he came across a bedroom. He slipped through the closed door and gently placed Daniel on the bed, no longer able to help his fatherly feelings.

Either that monster, Freakshow, didn’t let him transform back into his human half or the scepter didn’t. Daniel needed to take care of his human half as well as his ghost half or he would die. That Freakshow truly is an idiot. 

Daniel was still in pain. His eyes were squeezed shut against it as he steadily curled into himself. The poor boy must be starving, but in this state, he couldn’t eat solid food, and he didn’t look aware enough to drink anything.

Vlad dropped through the floor and into his first floor lab. He quickly grabbed an IV and medical tape. He loaded up a drip bag with saline and took a needle from the tables. He drifted back up through the floor and back to Daniel. He gently took the boy's arm and struggled to insert the IV’s needle. “Daniel, you need to stop squirming,” he voiced, hoping that he could hear him.

Either his words had reached the boy, or Daniel had finally lost consciousness because he gradually calmed until he stopped moving. The deep and dark half moons under Daniel’s eyes made it look like Freakshow wasn’t letting him sleep either.

Vlad had at last managed to insert the needle, and this time, he didn’t contain his sigh of relief. He placed a hand on Daniel’s shoulder and gently rolled him onto his back, draping a blanket over him. He didn’t know how long Daniel would be unconscious for or the extent of what was physically wrong with him, but sooner or later, he would wake up. In the meantime, Vlad could study the scepter.


	5. Frustration

Walker found Freakshow on the ground, lying on his back. The tent was empty. He had come to see that Ghost Boy be forced to become entertainment for others, to poke fun at the new empty look in his eyes, but instead, he found this. Walker kicked at Freakshow’s leg. “Hey. Are you dead?”

After a few more kicks, Freakshow groaned. “Lydia,” he muttered. He suddenly sat up and looked around. “Where is he?”

“Where’s who?” Walker asked. “What happened?”

“Another ghost showed up,” Freakshow explained, getting to his feet and dusting off his clothes. “He was tall with blue skin and stupidly pointy black hair. I thought I could take control of him, but his core was too strong for the scepter, and he defeated all of my ghosts and took the scepter!” He cried out in anger.

“Hm,” Walker hummed. “Do you think we still have control of the Ghost Boy?”

“We should.  _ If _ you did your job right.”

“ _ Me _ ?” Walker demanded. “You’re the one with the staff. The staff that  _ you _ lost.”

Freakshow growled again.

Walker sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose before looking back at the pale ringmaster. “Let’s go back to the castle in the Ghost Zone. If we still have control over him, we’ll find out there.”

Freakshow nodded, staring at the place where Lydia had fizzled out of existence. He would be dead if it wasn’t for her, but now she’s gone. Freakshow clenched his teeth, and his fingers curled into a fist at his side. 

Walker grabbed the back of his collar and took off into the air, holding onto the control freak.

* * *

The floating castle in the Ghost Zone was red throughout. It wasn’t uncommon to find detached, floating buildings here, but this particular castle was in the middle of complete nowhere. There wasn’t even a ghost energy nova anywhere to be seen. Because of this, no one had any reason to come here beyond just passing through. Walker had sent a pair of his soldiers to investigate the area out of curiosity and found this castle. Upon further investigation, he discovered that this place was the origin of a long-lost ghost artifact that Pariah Dark had spent years searching for, centuries before Walker even existed.

The red castle was mostly an empty shell of a structure. The place of interest for them lay below the foundations of the dungeon and underneath the dark, ghostly earth that it rested on. There were fires here that never went out, filling the rocky chamber with an orange glow. The fires blazed down below, which Walker and his guards had to be careful not to look at directly. One of the guards that Walker initially sent here had stayed here staring at the fires completely in a trance for days, and he didn’t even remember doing it. These fires had forged the crystal ball that sat atop of Freakshow’s staff, and the swirling mist inside was the smoke that came from this very same place.

Freakshow marched across the thin rock path that crossed the pit of fire, and Walker followed closely behind him. The two arrived in the stone-made gazebo on the other end of the bridge and stood inside. A large, red stone ball stood in the center, and Freakshow instantly put his hand on it. Walker closely watched the round rock. It wasn’t a danger to him since it contained the essence of Phantom’s core, so he intently watched the surface as it started to glow. 

An image that was blurred by the uneven surface of the rock ball slowly appeared on its surface. It was of Phantom, but he was in human form and he appeared to be unconscious. They couldn’t see his surroundings, so they unfortunately didn’t know where he was.

Freakshow didn’t take his eyes off of the image of the boy but spoke to Walker. “And you’re sure he’ll be able to hear us?”

“Does the stone contain half of his ghost core?” Walker mockingly questioned, crossing his arms.

“Yes, but--”

“Then  _ yes _ .”

“I meant that since he’s in human form, will there be any complications,” Freakshow clarified, his voice somewhat low and growling.

Walker considered for a moment. “I’m not sure. I only know oh, so much about this place, you know. That and there are only two Halfas in all of existence. No one knows anything about them other than themselves.”

Freakshow shrugged. “Might as well try.” He leaned closer to the stone ball and quietly called for him. “Phantom,” he demanded. “Get up, Phantom.”

The image of the boy on the stone jerked and tried to open his eyes, but it was clear that it was nigh on impossible for him. Freakshow continued to call after him until his eyes were opened. And much to the relief of Walker and Freakshow, his irises were still as red as the staff’s crystal.

“Come,” Freakshow ordered. “Come back to the castle.”

The image of Phantom lazily looked to his right. Eventually, he seemed to work up the strength to gradually lean forward. He flopped onto his side, seeming to strain to get to where he was looking.

“Why isn’t he transforming and coming immediately?” Freakshow shouted. “Get up!”

Phantom seemed to be crawling, but his progress was agonizingly slow. He wasn’t getting anywhere. He started grunting with the increased effort as Freakshow continued to shout. At some point, an unfamiliar voice hushed him and a pair of hands grabbed his shoulders, pulling him back. “Where are you trying to go?” the voice wondered. 

The image on the stone abruptly started to fade until it disappeared. “Ah!” Freakshow cried, raising a clenched fist. He swung his fist towards the red stone, but Walker grabbed his wrist, preventing him from damaging it. 

Freakshow ripped his hand from Walkers grasp, his jaw working. “Don’t damage the stone if you want to maintain the link to him,” Walker warned, much to Freakshow’s further frustration. 

“Why didn’t he come?” Freakshow demanded, angrily gesturing at the stone.

“The obelisk and stone clearly worked. You saw that,” Walker reminded. “But he could be too physically weak to get here.”

“Why would he be weak? He’s a ghost. They don’t really have a physical form that can even  _ get _ weak.”

Walker suppressed a sigh at Freakshow’s ignorance. “He’s half human. It’s possible that if he doesn’t keep his human half healthy that he’ll fully die. Did you ever feed him or let him sleep?”

It was Freakshow’s turn to sigh. “So what do we do?”

“We were planning on imprisoning him soon anyways. Why not do it now?” Walker suggested. “Wait for him to recover enough to transform and then summon him here.”


	6. Recovery

Vlad was pacing outside of the door to Daniel’s room in his human form, the red scepter gripped in his hand. He should be studying this in one of his labs. It was better suited for it, but he couldn’t bear to leave Daniel alone. It had been almost a full day and he had yet to wake up. Vlad had force fed him some broth to try and get the boy's strength back early this morning, but it didn't appear to help.

Part of him didn’t know why he was so worried. Even if Vlad wanted Daniel to be his son, he never would be. Daniel had made that clear enough. 

A groan reached his ears, coming from Daniel’s room. Vlad instantly leaned the scepter against the wall and phased through the door. Daniel had rolled onto his side so that his back was to Vlad. Daniel was reaching out towards the window and looked like he was trying to crawl somewhere. He was continuing to groan and kick at the blanket wrapped around him but was too weak to make any real progress.

Vlad rushed forward and gently grabbed Daniel’s shoulders. “Shh, shh,” he whispered. “Where are you trying to go?”

Daniel was still reaching for the window, his eyes half open. Vlad looked at his eyes, worried that they were still the color of the scepter, and much to his disappointment, they were. Daniel’s irises were a deep blood red, but in the time it took Vlad to get over the shock of that fact, the color was already starting to fade back into blue. Once the red hue had disappeared, Daniel relaxed, his eyes closing again.

What was happening? Vlad had to figure out what that scepter was doing to him and why it was still affecting him. When Vlad had released the other ghosts, after recovering from a brief daze, they were instantly alright and took off. Why was it still in control of Daniel?

Vlad left a duplicate with Daniel to keep an eye on him before heading back out the door. He grabbed the scepter and slipped through the floor, phasing straight into his underground lab. He put the scepter on an examination table and got to work

* * *

After several hours, Vlad’s duplicate had alerted him that something was wrong with Daniel. Vlad instantly left his work and transformed, gliding up through the ceiling until he got to Daniel’s door. He morphed back into human form before entering the room, slipping through the door. 

Daniel was groaning again, but he wasn’t reaching for the window. His hands were resting on the mattress but were clenching and unclenching like he was in pain.

Vlad went to him and checked his pulse. It was too fast, but he didn’t know what to do or how to help him. He wasn’t a doctor, and though he knew a lot about half-ghosts, he couldn’t help Daniel if he didn’t know what was wrong with him.

Daniel’s eyes opened slightly, and to Vlad’s delight, his irises were blue. “Daniel,” Vlad began, “do you know where you are?”

Daniel didn’t respond, but his eyebrows grew together in confusion. 

“Do you understand me?” Vlad strained to keep the worry out of his voice.

Daniel only stared at him for a moment until his eyes slipped closed again.

* * *

Vlad was with the scepter again, and after the past three days' worth of study, he had determined that the glass orb that adorned the top--more accurately, the swirling smoke inside--could hijack a ghost’s core, taking control of them. The glass was used to capture a ghost’s attention, and that allowed the smoke to do its work. But nothing indicated that its influence remained after the wielder of the scepter released the ghosts, so there had to be something else. Some other power that was connected to the scepter that was still influencing Daniel. It had to be wherever this scepter came from. The Ghost Zone was the best place to start looking.

But he couldn’t leave Daniel.

Vlad checked his watch. It was time to try and feed him again. Vlad left his lab and got some more broth from the kitchen, pouring it into a bowl and heating it up in the microwave. Maybe Daniel would actually be aware enough to swallow himself. Every time Vlad force fed him, he was terrified that Daniel would choke.

As he entered Daniel’s room, the boy was just as he had left him: completely unconscious. Vald approached his bed and sat on the edge. Daniel seemed to notice because he twitched, squeezing his eyes closed even tighter before relaxing again.The boy moved his lips and whispered something that Vlad couldn’t make out. He leaned down to hear and found that he was saying, “Mom.” He must be dreaming.

The ringing of his cell phone made him jump. Vlad placed the bowl of broth on the bedside table and reached into his pocket for his phone, pleading that the call wasn’t from one of his companies. To both his relief and anger, it wasn’t from work but from Jack’s house. Vlad flipped the phone open and put it to his ear. “Hello?”

“Hey, Vlad,” Maddie’s voice greeted.

“Maddie,” Vlad greeted, pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t Jack.

“Have you found him yet?”

Vlad froze, glancing at the unconscious boy in bed. He wasn’t sure what to say. Daniel was still muttering for his mother, and the pain in Maddie’s voice made his heart ache. But Daniel’s two little friends and Jasmine would definitely accuse him of taking the boy and might expose him.

“Vlad?” Maddie asked, letting him know that he’d been silent for too long.

For both the boy’s health and Maddie’s emotional state.

Vlad sighed and nodded. “I did.”


	7. Found

Vlad had stayed awake, taking the chair from the room’s desk and sitting in it at the side of the bed. Just before he dozed off where he was sitting, a banging from downstairs reached his ears. Vlad got up and made his way down to the front door and opened it, greeted by Jack, Maddie, Jasmine, and Daniel’s two friends. 

“Where is he?” Maddie demanded.

“Upstairs--” 

Maddie shoved straight past him and made her way to the stairs, barely giving him enough time to get the word out. Jack put a hand on Vlad’s shoulder. “I can’t thank you enough,” he said.

“I put him in a bed and left the door open for you,” Vlad muttered, internally pleading that Jack would get his large, disgusting hand off of him. 

Jack took off after his wife, moving faster than Vlad thought he could. Jasmine, Samantha, and Tucker walked through the door and closed it behind them. “Thought you said you didn’t have him,” Samantha muttered, glaring up at Vlad with her arms crossed defensively.

“I didn’t,” Vlad retorted. “If you want to see him, I suggest you go upstairs.”

The three seemed to decide that it was best not to argue and followed after the two adults. Vlad made his way up the stairs as well, moving more slowly than the others. Should he tell Jasmine and the other two the truth about how he found Daniel and what state he was in? It would be easier to search the expanse of the Ghost Zone for the source of the scepter with them involved, but would they interfere with his process? Essentially, his question was, would the three children be more trouble than they’re worth?

* * *

“Do you think he had him the whole time?” Jazz wondered as they made their way up the stairs.

“I’m honestly not sure,” Sam answered.

“He certainly seems genuine,” Tucker voiced, “but he is a master manipulator.”

“I think we should just wait and see what state Danny’s in before we do anything,” Sam suggested, receiving an agreeing nod from both Jazz and Tucker.

“Danny!” a voice shouted. It was Maddie.

The three friends rushed forward and found Maddie and Jack leaning over Danny who was laying on a bed, apparently unconscious. As they got closer, the more they discovered how bad Danny looked. He was thin, pale and sweaty. His breathing was too fast, and his heart was working so hard that they could see his chest pounding with each heartbeat. 

Maddie grabbed his hand. “Please wake up, sweetie,” she pleaded. “Please.”

“Where did this IV come from?” Jack wondered.

“I put it in,” Vlad answered behind them, getting them all to glance at him. Vlad walked up to the bed and stood beside them at the footboard. “Spending all that time in the hospital taught me a few things.”

“We need to get him to a hospital,” Maddie pointed out. It was obvious that she was struggling to hold it together. Her voice was shaking, and her eyes were watery and red, though no tears were falling.

She looked to Vlad and found that he had already put his phone to his ear. “Yeah,” he sighed, gesturing to his phone. 

Danny groaned, capturing all of their attention. “Danny?” Jack whispered, putting his hand on top of his wrist.

Danny's eyebrows knitted together for a moment, and his head slightly twitched from side to side before he cracked his eyes open. Tucker almost gasped at Danny's eyes. They were red for a brief second before the color dissipated. But no one else seemed to notice, so he kept quiet. He didn’t want to scare anyone. Especially with how tense and delicate this moment was. 

Maddie's breath hitched as she choked on a sob. "Danny," she whispered. "Can you see me?"

Danny's eyes widened at the sight of her, and there was recognition there, but he was clearly confused. 

"Yes, they're both here," Vlad voiced before holding out the phone in Maddie's direction. 

Jack took the cell phone and put it to his ear. "Yes, I'm his father…..He's cold, pale, sweaty, and his heart is hammering…...Okay….We're at Vlad Masters' castle." Jack lowered the phone and held it in his hand. "They want me to stay on the line until they get here," he explained. 

Jazz nodded, but her eyes were entirely focused on Danny. "Hey," she called, leaning closer to him. "I'm here, too."

Danny glanced at her, but his eyes were starting to close again.

"No, Son," Jack gently pleaded. "Stay awake, okay?"

Danny blinked hard and focused his eyes more on Jack. He heard them. They were all relieved at that, but he couldn't respond.

A faint voice came from the speaker on the cell phone, and Jack held it up to his ear. "Yeah, okay." He held out the phone to Vlad. "They're here."

Vlad nodded and took the phone. He headed out the door and, after a moment or two, returned with a pair of paramedics who had a stretcher. 

One of them spoke up to the group. "Please move out of the way so that we can examine him."

Jack put a hand on Maddie's shoulder and gently pulled her away from the bed. Tucker had to do the same to Jazz and Sam, guiding them further away from the bed to give the paramedics room to work. 

"What's in the IV," one of them questioned, glancing at Vlad.

"Just some saline," the older man answered. "It was clear that he needed fluids, but he wasn't conscious enough to drink it."

The same paramedic nodded. After a while of taking Danny's vitals and waving a light into his half open eyes, they expanded the stretcher and each took hold of one end of Danny. "One, two, three." On the last number, the two lifted Danny and quickly transferred him to the stretcher. Danny groaned as they moved him, making everyone tense. He visibly relaxed again, and everyone else did the same.

One of the paramedics turned to Maddie and Jack and instructed, “Follow behind us to the hospital.”

The parents nodded, and the two paramedics wheeled Danny out.

* * *

“Hey,” Tucker whispered, gaining Jazz and Sam’s attention.

Jazz dragged her eyes away from her mother who was continually pacing the length of the waiting room. “What is it?”

“Something I saw when Danny first opened his eyes,” he explained. He hesitated for a moment, making sure that Danny’s parents were more focused on each other than them. “I didn’t want to say anything at the time, but his eyes were red.”

Jazz tensed, and Sam raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure?” Sam questioned. “It could have been a trick of the light.”

Tucker considered for a moment. “I suppose that’s true, but the curtains were closed. There wasn’t much light in there.”

Jazz nodded. “He’s right.”

Sam glanced to the right, looking towards Vlad who was sitting several chairs away from Jack. “Maybe we should ask  _ him _ about it.”

Sam got to her feet just as a voice called, “Fenton family?”

Maddie rushed forward to a doctor in mint green scrubs and a lab coat. “Yes, that’s us.”

“Are you his mother?” the doctor asked, receiving a nod in answer. “Your son is severely malnourished and exhausted. He has two broken ribs that didn’t heal properly that seem to be causing him a lot of pain. He’s going to have to stay in the ICU for a few days until we can get his nourishment back up to acceptable levels.”

“And after that?” Jack asked, walking up to the doctor to join his wife.

“After that he will still need to be monitored, so he’ll need to stay in the hospital.”

“When can we take him home?” Maddie wondered.

“When we clear him to be taken out of the ICU, we could transfer him to the hospital in Amity Park,” the doctor answered.

“Can we see him?” Jack asked.

“We have him unconscious right now, so that he can sleep,” the doctor warned. “And only one person can be in there at a time. I hope you understand. Patients in the ICU need to be heavily monitored.”

Jack nodded and patted his wife on the shoulder. “Go ahead.”

Maddie hugged him before stepping forward and following the doctor back towards Danny.

Jack rubbed the back of his neck and returned to his seat, placing his head in his hands. Sam took the opportunity to get Vlad’s attention. “What’s wrong with Danny?” she quietly demanded.

Vlad barely looked up from his phone that he seemed to be taking notes on. “Just what the doctor said.”

“When we were with Danny in your house,” Tucker interjected, “his eyes were red.”

Vlad sat up a little straighter and looked directly at the three teenagers. He guessed that he had to tell them now. If he just kept hiding the truth from them, he wouldn’t be able to get anything done.  Vlad turned to Jack and spoke up. “Jack, do you need something to eat?” Danny’s father looked up at him. “I’m going to take the kids down to the cafeteria.”

Jack shook his head. “No, I’m alright. You guys go ahead.”

Vlad turned back to the three teenagers and spat, “Come on.”

The four were quiet in the elevator and during the walk to the cafeteria. They were in line to pay for their food when Sam finally broke the silence. “Why were his eyes red?” she interrogated.

“Let’s go sit down first. It’s a lot of information,” Vlad warned, causing Jazz, Sam and Tucker to nervously glance at each other.

When the three sat down, Jazz nearly threw her food tray down. “Explain,” she spat,

Vlad sighed. “If I’m being honest, I’m not one hundred percent sure why his eyes were red.”

“Why not?” Jazz pressed.

“I went looking for him myself the day you showed up at my house,” Vlad explained.

“Where did you find him?” Sam asked.

“In a remote area of Wisconsin. There was a man who I believe called himself ‘Freakshow’ who was holding a red scepter.”

“Freakshow?” the three simultaneously exclaimed.

“I take it that you’ve had an encounter with him before,” Vlad accepted, taking a bite of his salad, and he nearly gagged. “This is definitely not the type of food I’m used to.”

“What was Freakshow doing to him?” Jazz said through clenched teeth, her voice strained.

“It looked like he was having Daniel work for him on his circus tent,” Vlad answered. “When I showed up, he tried to use the staff on me, but my core is so powerful that it would take more exposure than that to take me over. When he realized this, he panicked and called all of the ghosts he had under his control and ordered them to attack me. I only had to destroy one of them. Lydia, I think she was called.”

“At least that’s one less ghost we have to worry about,” Tucker voiced, finally taking a bite out of his burger.

“When that ghost jumped in front of my blast, she wasn’t strong enough to withstand it, and it struck Freakshow as well. I looked him over, and he wasn’t breathing. He looked dead,” Vlad continued. “Not wanting to bother with them, I took the staff and released the ghosts he had under his control and took Daniel away from there to a place he’d be more familiar with.”

“Your castle,” Jazz finished.

Vlad nodded. “When I released the scepter’s hold on him, I thought that he would simply fly away, but then he instantly morphed back into his human form and collapsed. I spent the next couple of days studying the scepter."

“What did you find out?” Tucker wondered. “I always wondered how that stupid thing worked.”

“Well, the red crystal is designed to capture a ghost’s attention, and the smoke inside is what hijacks a ghosts core and takes control of it,” Vlad explained.

“Yeah, that’s great, but none of that explains why Danny’s eyes were red,” Sam interrupted. “That staff has been used on him before, and the second he was released from its hold, his eyes changed back to green.”

“Not to mention that you said it shattered, right?” Tucker added.

“If it was shattered, it must have been repaired,” Vlad suggested.

“Obviously,” Jazz agreed. “But why are you telling us this in the first place?”

“Yeah,” Tucker voiced. “Knowing you, this is still all some lie you’re cooking up to manipulate us.”

“I’m not lying,” Vlad calmly defended. “And I’m not trying to manipulate you.”

“Then why?” Jazz interrogated.

“If this crystal ball was repaired, it had to have been done in the Ghost Zone. It is a ghostly artifact, so it had to have come from there, but I don’t know where. And it is quite difficult to search the endless expanse of the Ghost Zone alone,” he explained.

“Why are you trying to help him?” Sam demanded. “Last time you interacted with him, you tortured him into transforming to suit your evil needs and then planned on wasting him.”

Vlad didn’t have an answer. “You can choose to look for the origin of this staff with me or not, but I will be searching for it regardless.”

He got up and took his food tray, tossing the remainder of the disgusting hospital food into the trash bin. He left the teenagers alone and returned upstairs, finding that Jack and Maddie had changed places.


	8. Testing and Waiting

Freakshow paced back and forth in front of the red stone sphere. “Do you think he’s ready, now?” he demanded, pausing momentarily to glare at Walker who was standing calmly on the edge of the stone gazebo.

“You can always check,” Walker reminded, internally berating himself for working with this circus freak in the first place.

Walker could have repaired the staff and imprisoned the Ghost Boy himself, but when he found Freakshow kneeling over the broken crystal ball, he thought it would be more efficient to work with him. Freakshow already knew how to operate the staff and knew more about it than he did. Working together would allow them both to take revenge on the boy faster than if Walker had done this alone.  But now, watching Freakshow pace back and forth for the past few hours had strained Walker’s patience. He couldn’t wait until the deed was done and he could get rid of this frustrating man.

Freakshow marched up to the red stone and put his hand on it, quickly making the image of the Ghost Boy appear. He looked to be stronger, though he was still pale and thin. The ringmaster removed his hand from the stone and turned to Walker. “He looks ready to me.”

Walker nodded. “But don’t you need the staff for this?”

Freakshow groaned. “I know I need the staff! But it’s not like we know where it is.”

“Actually, I’ve already had people tracking you, and when that Halfa showed up and took the scepter, they went out looking, and they should be on the way back with it, now.”

As if on cue, a pair of green ghosts in body armor flew through the entrance to the dungeon and crossed the bridge, one of them holding out the long, red staff. Freakshow grinned and took it from the ghost. “Finally,” he sighed. 

* * *

Vlad suddenly jumped, catching Jack’s attention. “What’s wrong, V-man?” he wondered.

Vlad pulled out his phone and gestured to it, holding it to his ear. Jack nodded, and Vlad stood, heading out of Danny’s room. He had been a few days, and the boy had been taken out of the ICU. However, the doctors recommended keeping him in this hospital for another week to ensure that he was safe to move. 

As soon as he crossed the threshold of the room, Vlad stuffed his phone back into his pocket and made his way to the exit.

“Where are you going?” Jazz demanded as she was returning from the vending machine with a snack for her father.

“I think someone just stole the staff,” Vlad curtly answered, continuing on his way.

In all the chaos of Daniel being in the hospital and police detectives interviewing him and Daniel’s friends and family, Vlad had almost forgotten about the staff. He had left it protected, of course. He had locked it up in an observation cabinet in his lab and put a mechanism in place that would alert his ghost core if someone had opened it. 

Vlad had entered the elevator and waited for the doors to close. He stood directly underneath the elevator’s camera so that it couldn’t see him and transformed. He turned invisible, taking off upwards, phasing through the ceiling of the elevator and the hospital quickly. He flew towards his castle as fast as he could, and when he got there, he made his way through the wall and floors that separated him from his secret lab. Once inside the lab, he checked the clear cabinet and found it empty. The thieves didn’t even bother to close the door.

“Ah!” he called out in frustration. Without that staff, he had no way of narrowing down the areas of the Ghost Zone.

* * *

“Here you go, Dad,” Jazz said, handing him a bag of chips from the vending machine.

“Thanks sweetie,” he said as he took the bag. 

Jazz took her seat just as Maddie returned from the bathroom and Tucker and Sam returned from their police interviews. “Has he changed at all?” Maddie asked, kneeling down by the bed and taking her son’s hand.

“Other than curling up on his side in his sleep, not at all,” Jack answered.

“Where’s Vlad?” Sam whispered to Jazz.

“I saw him run off. He said that someone might have taken the staff.”

“That’s not good,” Tucker said.

“I agree,” Sam added, “But is it really important? If Freakshow or another ghost took the staff, is it really a threat to Danny if it stays far away?”

“That’s true,” Jazz pondered.

“I say we let Vlad handle the staff, and we stay here with Danny,” Tucker suggested. “We’ve dealt with him while he was under its control before.”

“I know but…” Jazz trailed off. “But I think this might be different than what you told me happened before.”

A green light flashed outside, and Sam instantly got up from her seat to investigate. Down in the alleyway between the hospital and the parking structure next door was a small green mass that was swirling around. Sam glanced towards Jack and Maddie and found that they were completely focused on Danny and didn’t even notice the flashing light.

Sam went over to her backpack on the floor and pulled out one of their Thermoses. 

“What’re you doing?” Jazz whispered.

“I think one of those natural portals to the Ghost Zone just opened outside,” Sam quietly explained. 

“Want me to take this one?” Tucker offered.

“No, I got it.”

The other two nodded, and Sam stood about to take a step towards the door and deliver the excuse of using the bathroom. But then Danny groaned. He rolled over onto his back, and his eyes were squeezed shut. “No,” he breathed.

“Danny? Danny, it’s okay,” his mother comforted, running her fingers through his hair like he was still a little kid. 

But it didn’t have any effect. Danny continued to groan and roll his head from left to right, his breathing and heart rate speeding up simultaneously. The heart monitor beeped ferociously and was getting faster by the second.

Sam dropped the Thermos back into her bag. She couldn’t leave him.

“Call the doctor,” Maddie ordered, barely taking her eyes off her son.

Jack nodded and stood up, taking a step towards the door, but he froze when Danny suddenly sat up, straight at a pole, and his eyes wide. 

And red.

Maddie stood up when she noticed. “Danny?”

He didn’t respond. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up.

Jazz grabbed his shoulder. “Danny, hey.”

He ignored her. Phased straight through her. Jack and Maddie audibly gasped at that. 

Danny continued, completely ignoring those around him and phasing through whatever was in his way. He stopped outside of the window and stared out of it for a moment before his white transformation rings appeared and moved apart, changing him from human to ghost.

Jack growled and pulled out an ecto-gun. “That Phantom Punk is overshadowing our son!”

“Dad, no!” Jazz shouted, shoving his hand upwards, throwing off his aim, making the blast shatter the window instead of hitting Danny in the head.

Danny stepped forward again and dropped down. The family and two friends rushed towards the window and watched as Danny’s ghost form glided down to the ground and then took a step through the swirling, green portal, disappearing. 

There were several seconds of deep breaths before Maddie demanded, “What just happened?”

* * *

Daniel’s hospital window shattered, causing Vlad to freeze mid-flight. Danny then dropped down to the street in ghost form, stepping through a natural portal to the Ghost Zone. The portal dissipated, and so did Daniel. There was no trace of him.

Vlad’s ears picked up the sound of shouting coming from the broken window. If Daniel was going somewhere, it was probably related to the scepter, and from the sound of it, his parents were there when he took off. He invisibly floated up to the window and watched the ensuing argument.  “What do you mean he’s ‘half ghost’?” Jack demanded.

Maddie grabbed Jack’s arm. “The lab accident. Could that have caused it?”

Samantha nodded. “Yeah. We were there.” She gestured to Tucker. 

“He pushed some kind of button on the inside, and it suddenly turned on and blasted him with ghost energy,” Tucker explained.

“Vlad!” Jack suddenly exclaimed, making the invisible half-ghost freeze in the air, thinking he saw him. “He got bombarded with ghost energy in college! Could he be like Danny? Is that why he still secretly hates me?”  At least that buffoon wasn’t one hundred percent oblivious.

“What’s going on here?” a doctor demanded, walking in and seeing the broken window.

“Danny walked out,” Maddie said. “We tried to stop him, but he left anyway. We don’t know where he went.”

The doctor nodded, buying the half true explanation. “I’ll alert security and the police. We’ll find him.” He then left.  Jack closed the door behind him.

“Uh, Dad,” Jazz muttered, getting his attention. “About Vlad….”

Vlad rolled his eyes. He better explain this. It was guaranteed that Daniel’s family and friends saw it, and he was not going to keep his distance from this. He had to find Daniel.  Vlad glided through the broken window and regained visibility, making Jack jump. “The Wisconsin Ghost!”

Vlad morphed back into his human form. “You’re right, Jack.”

The two parents were silent. 

“Where do you think Danny went?” Jazz demanded.

“I don’t know. I can try to sense his ghost core in the Ghost Zone,” Vlad said. “But we have to get moving fast. The further away he gets, the harder it will be to sense him.”

“And how do we know that you really want to find him and not kidnap him?” Sam interrogated.

“I had him for almost an entire week,” Vlad reminded. “If I wanted to kidnap him, I would have lied to Maddie and kept his presence in my house to myself, now wouldn’t I?”

Tucker leaned closer to Sam and whispered, “He’s got a point, you know.”

Vlad pretended not to hear him.

“W-we have the Specter Speeder downstairs,” Maddie spoke up. “We can take that into the Ghost Zone.”

“And there’s a ghost portal back at my castle. Let’s go.” Vlad marched towards the door, seething with rage towards whoever would do this to Daniel.

“You have a ghost portal?” Maddie exclaimed.

“Yes,” Vlad sighed. “Now, do you want to catch up to Daniel, or not?”

* * *

He didn’t know who they were, but they were nice to him, and he didn’t want to leave them. But fighting the pull of where this red was leading him was painful, so it was better not to. But he couldn’t shake this ever-increasing feeling of dread that was growing bit by bit the closer he got to his destination. He didn’t know where he was going, but he knew he was getting closer.

He didn’t know how long it took, but eventually, he came to a red castle that was in the middle of nowhere and flew inside. He followed the pull, and that led him below the dungeon of the castle and even further underground. The place was full of fire and red rock, but it was hard to differentiate between the two due to the red haze that was filtering his vision.

He glided across a thin stone bridge towards a carved gazebo. A tall, white ghost man was waiting there, but he didn’t care. His master was there, and he had regained his Staff. “Welcome back, you sad excuse for ectoplasm,” his master greeted.

Part of him suspected that those five people from before wouldn’t say anything like that, but he couldn’t remember. And it’s not like what his Master said hurt his feelings. He couldn’t really feel anything at the moment. Everything was muted and distant like he was underwater. Red water.

Master stepped to the side and waved his staff, gesturing away from him. “Lean against the wall,” he ordered.

He obeyed without real thought of what he was doing. He walked around the large stone ball that sat in the middle of the gazebo and went to the wall behind it. There was some kind of large symbol carved into the rock, but he couldn’t make it out. And he didn’t really care.  He did as he was told and leaned his back against the hard, stone wall. His master lifted the Staff and slammed it down. The Staff stayed standing on its own, and some sort of straps grew out of the craggy wall and wrapped themselves around his wrists and ankles. The straps hoisted him up and spread his limbs out so that he was completely vulnerable. 

“Let it begin,” Master ordered.

What was his Master trying to do? What was happening? He was starting to feel tired again, and he didn’t know why. The more he tried to figure it out, the less he was able to think straight. His mind continued to drift, and he thought of those people. He didn’t know who they were, but he missed them. They were nice. And he had a terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach that he wouldn’t see him again.


	9. Fight

“Find my son!” Maddie shouted, getting right up into Vlad’s face.

“I cannot begin to tell you how difficult it is to sense one particular core in the midst of all of this.” Vlad gestured out the window. “It’s like trying to find one very particular needle in a country of needles.”

Vlad closed his eyes and went back to concentrating. Every now and then, he gets a single ping. It was far away and faint, but it was Daniel, and it was enough to guide them.

The Specter Speeder suddenly jerked to a stop, jostling Vlad in his seat. “What’s she doing?” Tucker asked, pointing out the windshield.

Vlad opened his eyes and spotted a dark-haired ghost dressed in red floating in front of the Speeder. “Just go around her,” Jack ordered.

“No, wait,” Vlad requested, standing up from his seat and approaching the front. He recognized this ghost. “She was there with Freakshow and Daniel when I found him.”

“Are you looking for the boy with the ‘D’ on his chest?” the ghost wondered.

Jazz snatched up the communication microphone and practically shouted into it, “Have you seen him?”

The ghost nodded. “My sister followed him. She knows where he is, and I can track her. Follow me.”

The ghost took off to the right, and Tucker stepped on it to go after her. After a minute or two of flying, Maddie took the microphone from Jazz. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Giselle,” the ghost answered, glancing back at them briefly before refocusing on flying.

“Thank you, Giselle,” Maddie answered and put the microphone back down.

Less than ten minutes of flying at top speed later, Giselle slowed to a halt. The Speeder had stopped a few kilometres away from a floating red castle, and there was nothing else around. This area of the Ghost Zone was completely empty. 

Another ghost was flying away from the castle and towards the Speeder. She stopped near Giselle and walked quietly with her. Giselle nodded and then turned to those waiting in the vehicle. “You have to leave your...car (?) here. Freakshow and Walker took the ghost you’re looking for underground,” she explained.

“Why are you helping us?” Sam interrogated, microphone in her hand.

“That ghost was very young,” Giselle’s sister said, her voice small. “Freakshow didn’t treat him well.”

“He’d take him in the back and then the boy would return covered in bruises and ectoplasm, but none of us could do a thing about it,” Giselle added. “When Freakshow wasn’t around at the end of the day, he’d pass out and talk in his sleep about some people named Sam and Tucker and would call for his parents.”

Sam glanced down at the microphone before looking back up at Giselle. “His name is Danny.”

Giselle nodded. “Let’s go. We don’t know what Freakshow has planned for him, but it can’t be good, and Danny will have no choice in the matter.”

Tucker pulled the release that opened the back door. Jack and Maddie pulled on the hoods and goggles of their jumpsuits and made their way out of the Speeder, followed by Sam and Tucker. Vlad transformed and slipped through the floor of the Speeder and floated behind them.

“Ah!” Jack exclaimed, pointing his gun at Vlad.

Vlad instinctively knocked it out of the way. “Calm down!” he said. “It’s me.”

Jack lowered his gun. “Oh. Right. Still not used to it.” He pulled out a set of keys and locked the Speeder.

“This way,” Giselle’s sister informed, gesturing for them to follow her. 

* * *

The green light coming out of him flowed forward into the red stone ball. The more that came out of him, the more tired he got, but he didn’t close his eyes. He still wanted to see those people again. Maybe once he sees them again he can fall asleep.

“Get away from him!” someone shouted, and then his Master got blasted away.

“Defend the stone!” the white ghost ordered.

He tried hard to pick his head up, and when he finally managed to, he saw them. They were here with some sort of blasters and were firing away at green ghosts dressed in body armor. One of them--the girl with black hair and a ponytail--looked at him. “Hold on!” she shouted.

She wanted him to live. That made him feel something, but he couldn’t tell what it was, and he was too tired to try and figure it out.

A hand wrapped itself around his throat and forced him to look at his Master. “We have to speed this up,” he muttered.

A sharp pain bit into his chest, growing more intense by the second, and the pressure on his throat increased with it.

Sam and Jazz froze at the scream. They glanced at Danny. The greenish-yellow mist that was coming out of his chest earlier was pouring out faster and faster. Freakshow had his hand around his neck and seemed to be squeezing hard. What even was his plan?

Jazz shook her head. It didn’t matter. They were killing him.

One of Walker’s guards popped up in front of her, and she readied her gun, but she wasn’t fast enough. The ghost thrust his shock prod at her, catching her in the stomach. Jazz cried out in pain, and the ghost snickered. 

The guard suddenly disappeared, revealing Vlad behind him with a fist outstretched, glowing purple. “Thanks,” Jazz breathed, putting a hand to her torso where the ghost had zapped her. Vlad nodded, his eyebrows knit together in some sort of concentration. 

“You have the best chance of getting closer,” Maddie said, coming up to the two. “We’ll keep the ghosts at bay while you get Danny out of there.”

Vlad nodded again and turned invisible. He floated up when he suddenly got dizzy. Vlad put a hand to his temple and shook his head. He didn’t know what the properties of these flames were, but they were making it hard for him to concentrate. They definitely were the source of the crystal ball, and the smoke coming from them must be what was contained inside.

Vlad opened his eyes again and used the sound of Daniel’s fading groans and Freakshow’s triumphant laughter to help keep his focus. He rushed forward, analyzing the scene along the way. The scepter was stuck in the ground in front of a large, red, stone ball that was steadily turning green. Vlad almost stopped at figuring it out. The stone was sucking out his life force--his soul.

He pushed himself even faster and landed on the floor of the gazebo. He took hold of the scepter and tore it from the ground. Freakshow looked back at him, his eyes filled with anger. “Put that back!” he ordered, removing his hand from Daniel’s throat.

Daniel gasped for breath, and the flow of greenish light coming from him seemed to slow down. Freakshow stalked towards Vlad. The half ghost held out a hand and blasted him in the gut. He doubled over in pain and glared up at Vlad.  Vlad smirked and opened his mouth to say something demeaning, but he was suddenly grabbed from behind. Walker held Vlad’s arms at such an awkwardly painful angle that he dropped the staff. The second it was out of his hands, Walker snatched it up and tossed it to Freakshow. The ringmaster caught the staff and unsteadily got to his feet, using the scepter as a balance. 

“I don’t care how powerful you are,” Freakshow growled, “in this place, no ghost can maintain themselves.”

Freakshow waved the staff towards Vlad, and the half ghost got unbearably dizzy. Freakshow smirked evilly, but Vlad could barely see it through the strange red mist that was steadily taking over his vision.

Jack took the chance after sucking another ghost into a Thermos to glance towards Vlad. He ran forward at what he saw. Another ghost popped up to try and block his path, but it was instantly shot from the side, getting covered in ectoplasmic goo. Jack looked to the source of the shot and found his wife there with an Ecto-foamer. “Go help him!” she shouted, ducking a blast from a ghost.

Jack resumed his charge, barely concentrating on balancing on the thin bridge. He jumped up and tackled the tall white ghost, making him drop Vlad. The ghost turned intangible and disappeared. Jack got to his feet and readied his ecto-blaster. 

The white ghost reappeared, and Jack instantly blasted it in the chest. The ghost stumbled back a couple of steps with the force of the shot. The ghost froze and glanced from Jack towards the bridge at the remaining hostile ghosts.

Walker looked towards the Ghost Boy and found him limp and nonreactive. He’d die soon anyways. Walker sighed. It wasn’t worth it anymore. He wasn’t expecting this much resistance. He wasn’t going to lose his afterlife over this. Freakshow could handle the rest on his own. Walker put two fingers in his mouth and whistled, gaining the attention of the rest of his forces. “Retreat!” he ordered. “We’re getting out of here.”

“Where are you going?” Freakshow shouted. “Protect me!”

Walker chuckled as he floated away. “I’m not losing my afterlife over this. Especially since the Ghost Boy looks like he’s about to lose his soul anyways.”

As the white ghost flew off, Jack turned to the tall, pale man with the red staff. He wanted to go after the ghost, but his son was more important. Not to mention that this man was hurting his friend. He knew Vlad still hated him, but perhaps one day, if he kept trying, he could change that. Jack held up his gun and aimed at the man. “Drop the staff, and release my son,” he demanded. 

Freakshow looked at him and laughed. “Not a chance.” Vlad had gotten to his feet and turned to face Jack. “Blast him.”

Vlad held up a hand, and it instantly glowed purple. Realizing what was happening, Jack jumped out of the way as Vlad released the blast. The ecto-blast hit one of the stone gazebo’s pillars, smashing it to pieces. 

At hearing the sound of the collapsing stone, Maddie, Jazz, Sam, Tucker, Giselle and her sister halted their chase of the enemy ghosts and looked back towards the carved gazebo. “What’s Vlad doing?” Maddie questioned.

“Freakshow must’ve taken him over with the crystal ball,” Sam explained. 

“Dad needs help!” Jazz exclaimed, charging forward with the rest.

“Jazz and I will get Danny. Giselle, her sister and Sam will back up Jack while Tucker goes for the staff,” Maddie strategized. 

Without a word, the group split up to their separate assignments. Gislle and her sister landed behind Vlad, their backs to Freakshow. They knew that they wouldn’t stand a chance against that staff, especially here, so they didn’t dare look at it. Sam joined Jack at his side with her gun, firing at Vlad without hesitation, and she couldn’t deny that part of her was satisfied that she was. The two ghostly sisters blasted Vlad in the back of the legs, bringing him to his knees. Jack refused to fire. Under mind control or not, Vlad was still his friend.

“Gah!” Freakshow shouted. “You stupid ghosts!”

Taking the opportunity, Tucker lunged for the staff, managing to get his hands around it. “Hey!” Freakshow exclaimed. “Hands off!”

The ringmaster gripped the staff harder wrestling with the teenager. “Let Danny go!” Tucker ordered.

Vlad put a hand to his head, his dizziness returning. Despite that, he could think a bit more clearly. He carefully glanced towards Freakshow and found Tucker wrestling with him. “Blast him,” Vlad breathilly requested.

“What?” Sam asked.

“Blast...Freakshow,” Vlad clarified.

Jack instantly raised his gun, firing at Freakshow’s back. The sudden pain made the man scream and forced him to release the staff. Tucker snatched the staff and used it as a weapon, whacking Freakshow in the head with the crystal ball, causing it to shatter again. Tucker threw the staff as far as he could, and it landed in the fires, hoping that it would be so utterly destroyed that no one could use it again. The flames briefly flashed brighter before dying down again. 

“No!” Freakshow shouted, reaching towards where Tucker threw the staff.

“You’ll never hurt my son again,” Jack muttered, pressing his gun directly against Freakshow’s temple.

The ringmaster tensed and looked at Jack through the corner of his eye. “N-no. I won’t. I’ll go back to prison without a fuss,” he pleaded.

Jack’s hardened expression didn’t change. “Too easy.”

The father pulled the trigger on his gun, drilling a hole directly into Freakshow’s skull. The ringmaster dropped limp to the floor, his eyes open. There was a little blood trickling out of the hole in the side of his head, but the heat of the ectoblast had cauterized the wound for the most part.

“Thank you,” a voice whispered, getting the group to look up. 

From the place that Tucker threw the staff, numerous ghosts were rising from the flames and dissipating. Many of them looked to the group and either waved or smiled. It didn’t take long for the male ghost who thanked them to disappear as well.

“What was that?” Tucker wondered.

“It looks like Freakshow was trying to suck out Daniel’s soul,” Vlad explained, getting to his feet. “They must be the souls of other ghosts who were trapped inside the staff.”

“Danny!” Maddie yelled.

“Please wake up!” Jazz pleaded.


	10. Healing

“Danny, come on!” Maddie insisted, starting to lightly shake her son by the shoulders.

The others of the group skirted Freakshow’s body and joined Maddie and Jazz. Jazz held her brother’s head in her lap and was quickly tearing up. The transformation rings appeared around Danny’s waist, quickly changing him into human form. 

Vlad sighed and looked away. He might not be dead yet, but…

Jack grabbed Vlad’s shoulder, forcing him to look at him. “What’s wrong with him!” he yelled. “You have to help him!”

“I can’t,” Vlad muttered. He glanced back at the pale and unconscious boy, not bothering to brush off Jack’s hand. “Normally, we retain the form that is best equipped for the environment when we’re unconscious. Meaning we should stay in ghost form in the Ghost Zone, but…”

Jack’s shoulders slumped as he slowly retracted his hand. He looked at Vlad, silently pleading, but he received no answer and chose to kneel down beside his son and take his hand. “Please, don’t go, son,” he pleaded.

At finally hearing them, he opened his eyes. It was hard, and he barely managed to do it, but when he did, the sight of them made him...happy? They were still here, and there was something different.

Where did all the red go?

A sudden pain in his chest made him squeeze his eyes shut, but he forced himself to open them again. He could tell what was happening. Everything, including this pain was going to go away soon, but he still wanted to see them.

“Come on, Danny,” another voice said. “Come back with us.”

He tried to find the source of the voice and thought it came from the dark-haired girl.

“I can help,” an unfamiliar voice informed.

The others turned to the source of the sound, and the face it belonged to came into view. He thought he recognized the ghost girl, but before he could place the face, the light-haired girl with teal eyes above him spoke up. “Please do. Whatever it takes.”

“To save his life force, I need to take from someone else’s,” the ghost girl said.

“Take mine,” the woman in the blue suit requested.

“No!” the orange-suited man defied. “Take mine.”

“I can take from you both,” the ghost girl said. “That would probably be best. If I take from only one of you, that person will most likely die.”

The man and woman in suits glanced at each other and nodded. The woman looked to him and put a hand on his chest that he could barely feel. “Don’t worry, Danny,” she said. Danny? Why does he know that name? “Everything will be okay.”

“Thank you, Giselle,” the man said as the ghost girl approached.

The girl knelt down between them and took their hands. She said something to them, but he couldn’t hear what it was. His vision was darkening, now. It was like before when he was tied to the stone, only worse. Harder to ignore.

As the man and woman grasped his hands and squeezed their eyes shut in what looked like pain, he closed his eyes. He saw them again. That was all he wanted. And if his eyes didn’t open again, he’d be okay with that.

* * *

When Giselle released Jack and Maddie’s hands, they instantly fell to the floor, unconscious. Vlad got down on the ground and phased his hand through Daniel’s chest, feeling for the state of his ghost core. “How is he?” Jasmine wondered, not taking her eyes off of her brother. 

“From what I can tell, his core is steadily getting stronger,” Vlad said, drawing his hand back out of Daniel’s chest. “His ghost half will be fine, and the regenerative abilities he has will help his human half’s recovery, but we still need to take him back to the hospital.”

Jasmine nodded as Vlad cautiously grasped Daniel under his arms and picked him up.

“What should we do with  _ him _ ?” Tucker demanded, gesturing to Freakshow’s dead body.

“It’s not like we can blow this off,” Sam pointed out. “Freakshow escaped from prison, and we’ve had an encounter with him before. It would be easy to sell a story about revenge.”

“Which is actually true,” Tucker added. “We just need to cut out all the ghost stuff.”

“And we should bring back his body for evidence. That way they don’t just take our word for it,” Jazz said.

It took a little while, but with the help of Giselle and her sister, the group eventually got Daniel, Maddie, Jack and Freakshow’s body into the Specter Speeder. Giselle and her sister guided them back to where they met, and Vlad then showed them the way back to his portal. Vlad took Freakshow’s body and planted it a few blocks away from the hospital before phasing back through the floor of the Speeder and morphing back into human form.

“How much trouble do you think Dad will be in?” Jazz wondered aloud, her eyes on her sleeping parents and brother who were lying on the floor next to each other.

“It’s a self-defense killing, Jazz,” Sam reminded. “If we can prove that, he won’t be in much trouble at all.”

“The problem is that our evidence is circumstantial,” Jazz said. “And Dad shot him at point blank range. That’s an execution. What’ll happen?” 

Tucker landed the Speeder in the emergency intake lot of the hospital, and Jazz rushed out, running up to the door and banging on the glass. The doors slid open, and an ER doctor came out, grabbing Jazz’s shoulders and telling her to calm down. “What’s happened?” the doctor questioned.

“We found my brother,” Jazz explained to her. “Danny Fenton. He’s in the Speeder.”

At hearing the name, the doctor leaned back through the door and shouted for more people to come. They rushed past Jazz with a stretcher and to the Speeder. Inside, they found the three unconscious people lying on the floor. Two of the doctors went back inside to get two more stretchers. The first doctor came inside and knelt down on the floor of the vehicle, checking everyone’s vitals. When the other two doctors returned, they all helped each other to get Danny, Maddie and Jack onto stretchers, and then they took them inside to be examined.

After a moment or two, the first doctor that Jazz talked to came back out as Vlad, Sam and Tucker exited the Speeder. “You’ll need to leave your...car here,” she instructed. “The police will want to take a look at it as well as question each of you.”

“Good,” Vlad voiced. “We have something they need to be made aware of.”


	11. Wake Up

Maddie and Jack Fenton woke up rather confused, unsure of what had happened. Maddie sat up and put a hand to her head that was throbbing with pain. When she tried to remember what happened, she thought of her son when he suddenly woke up and got out of bed. After that, there were spotty memories of a chamber made out of red stone. 

At finally glancing around the room, she found that she was in a hospital room similar to the one Danny had been resting in. Her husband was beside her in a second bed sitting up with his arms wrapped around his knees, looking at something that she couldn't see on his other side.

"Jack?" she called.

He jumped as if her voice had scared him. He turned to face her. "Danny," he muttered, pointing towards what he was looking at earlier.

Maddie instantly threw the sheets back and stood, her vision spinning at the speed. She paused to steady herself. "Are you okay?" Jack wondered, his voice thick with worry. 

After a moment or two, Maddie nodded. She rounded the end of Jack's bed and found her son looking just as pale and thin as when he left the hospital. She put a hand on his arm, somehow trying to comfort herself. She couldn't shake the feeling that something had happened and that there was something going on that she didn't know.

Danny’s hand suddenly twitched, making Maddie jump. “Danny?” she called. Her son groaned and shifted on the bed, looking like he was trying to open his eyes. Maddie glanced over to Jack and ordered, “Hit the call button for the doctor.”

Jack nodded and reached for the button, hitting it.

After a few moments, a doctor appeared. The same one from before. “You’re awake,” he noted, entering the room.

“And I think Danny’s trying to wake up, too,” Maddie informed as Danny’s eyelids fluttered.

The doctor messed with his pager, and then approached Maddie as he placed it back onto his belt. “Missus Fenton, we need to look you over.” He put a hand on her shoulder.

Danny was blinking, now. It was slow, but it was there. Maddie gripped her son’s hand harder, her heart beating harder and faster the more he moved. “Then look me over here,” she muttered, not even looking at the doctor. 

“Missus Fenton--”

“I’m not leaving him.”

The doctor debated for a moment and then sighed as two nurses walked in. “I will look over your son,” he said. “But you need to let go of his hand and let the nurse look you over.”

Maddie finally looked up from her son and to the doctor who stared her right in the eye. After a moment of hesitation, she slowly let go of Danny’s hand and one of the two nurses--a light-skinned young woman with blonde hair tied tightly into a bun--walked up to her. The other nurse, a pale, older man who was bald, approached Jack. The two nurses went through the process of checking their vitals and shining a light into their eyes.

“Mister Fenton,” the doctor called, getting Jack to look at him, but he found that the doctor had a hand on his son’s shoulder. The doctor continued to flash a light in his eyes, making Danny squeeze his eyes shut against it. “Can you hear me, Mister Fenton?”

“Danny?” Maddie pleaded, looking around the nurse who was struggling to look her over. 

Danny reacted to the sound of her voice, glancing towards it.

“What’s going on?” another voice asked. Everyone looked towards the sound and found Sam and Tucker standing in the doorway with Vlad and Jazz behind them.

“Did Danny wake up?” Tucker asked.

“He’s trying to,” Maddie answered, looking back to her son.

The doctor was helping him to sit up, and Danny had a hand on his head, massaging his temple. The doctor leaned down to be on eye level with him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Do you know where you are, Mister Fenton?”

Danny opened his eyes again and looked up, his gaze drifting around the room at the various people there. He opened his mouth to try to speak only to wince in pain and put a hand to his throat.

“I’ll go get him some water,” Sam voiced, disappearing and returning a second later with a styrofoam cup in her hand.

Sam handed it to the doctor who took it quickly. He held it to Danny’s lips and gently poured a few drops into his mouth. The second Danny realized that water was streaming into his mouth, he drank it up like he had never drank water before in his life. The doctor took the small cup away and handed it back to Sam with thanks.

Danny looked disappointed when the cup was taken away, but he cleared his throat and opened his mouth again. His voice was creaky and faint, sounding like sandpaper being dragged over tree bark. “Where am I?” he muttered.

* * *

The next morning, the same pair of detectives that had interrogated Vlad, Sam and Tucker came into the room and asked to see Maddie and Jack, now that the doctors had given them a clean bill of health. The pair led the parents out of the room and took Maddie to the left and Jack to the right. Maddie at first refused to leave Danny’s side, but the detectives threatened her with an obstruction of justice charge to get her to go with them, but she still glanced back at Danny as they led her away.

“Do you think they’ll buy it?” Jazz whispered.

“Not without a fight and a court case,” Sam answered.

“There is no physical evidence other than their states when we brought them back and the hole in Freakshow’s head,” Tucker pointed out. “That means they have to take us at our word. I do think we have a chance.”

“And their missing memory will be a problem,” Vlad voice as he walked into the room, putting his phone back into his pocket.

“We’ll need a really good lawyer,” Sam added, pulling out her phone.

“No need Samantha,” Vlad said, causing Sam to twitch at being called by her full name. “I already called mine, though he’s actually a business lawyer, but it’ll do for now.”

“Why are you even getting your lawyer to defend Danny’s dad?” Tucker questioned. “Don’t you hate him?”

Vlad glanced at the slumbering Danny. “I have my own reasons.”

* * *

It was a few hours later when Jack and Maddie finally returned to Danny’s room. “How did it go?” Jazz wondered as they sat down around Danny’s bed with everyone else.

“They took us into separate rooms and asked me a bunch of questions about that creepy, goth ringmaster,” Maddie explained. “It seemed like they were trying to twist my words to get me to admit to something I don’t remember. They told us both not to leave the state until we were given the ‘okay’.”

Danny sighed audibly and lifted a hand to rub his eyes. “Danny?” Jazz called. He has been so unresponsive and distant the past day, that any sign of movement from him made them all both excited and nervous.

Her brother opened his eyes and reached for the small cup on the table next to him. Jack grabbed it and helped Danny sit up. Jack held the cup up to his face, and Danny gulped down the water inside. “Slow down, Son. You’ll choke yourself,” Jack warned, taking the cup away. 

“Son?” Danny wondered.

Maddie leaned forward, her movement getting Danny to look at her. "Yes, Danny," she said, her eyebrows knitting together in worry. She gestured between herself and Jack. "It's us, your mom and dad."

"Danny…" the confused boy muttered. 


	12. Remember

He didn’t remember. Vlad was straining to focus on the paperwork he had delivered to his house, but his mind kept straying back to Daniel. Last he saw him was two days ago, and the poor boy was so confused. You could see it in his eyes. Daniel didn’t remember anything. He didn’t remember his own name, let alone the names of his best friends. Not even his sister. He didn’t remember who his parents were, and his disorientation would occasionally return in full force. Daniel would be completely lucid, gradually relearning who he was, but then he would freeze, blink rapidly and put a hand to his temple, shaking his head. After a moment, he would look back up and not remember where he was or who was around him.

Vlad wanted to go back to Amity Park since the boy was finally cleared to be moved there and his parents were cleared of any wrongdoing in Freakshow’s death. But he had left his work unattended for too long. If he shoved it to the side for too long, he would lose face, and that could never happen. Even a small slip in his public appearance could lead to his discovery.

He sighed and dropped his pen, leaning back in his chair. He rubbed his eyes and checked the time. Almost midnight. He made the determination. He had only left Daniel because his work was done. He had accomplished his goal and gotten Daniel out of his situation and ensured that his health was stable, and he even went the extra mile and had his lawyer prove that Freakshow’s killing was done in self-defense. He didn’t owe the boy or his family or friends anything. And he could do without the constant glares from Jasmine and the other two. But he couldn’t ignore it anymore. His worry for Daniel’s health had been gnawing at him for the past two days. Not to mention that Daniel didn’t remember that he had ghost powers. Once his ghost half gets back to full health, he could transform unexpectedly and reveal himself, and subsequently, Vlad as well. 

Vlad would finish his work, and tomorrow he would go to Amity Park and check on Daniel.

* * *

Jazz froze in the hall of the hospital. “Jazz, sweetie?” Maddie called. “Are you okay.”

The teenager strained to contain herself, but her lip still quivered. “I--” She cleared her throat to try and dispel the trembling in her voice. “I don’t think I can do this again.”

She turned around, walking briskly back to the waiting room. She couldn’t do this anymore. It was like Danny had Alzheimers. She couldn’t bear it. It would be easier if she could talk to Sam and Tucker about it all, but she can’t. They’re stuck in school right now. She would be, too, if her teachers hadn’t taken pity with her and excused her from class to see her brother. 

“Jazzy Pants,” her dad said quietly, taking her hand. 

Jazz stopped but turned her face away. Warm tears were starting to slowly drip down her cheeks. Jack embraced his daughter the instant he noticed her tears. After a moment, Jazz wrapped her arms around her father’s large waist, gripping him tightly. Maddie ran up to them and took hold of them both. 

“I know it’s hard, Jazz,” Jack sighed, “but Danny needs us. He won’t ever be able to remember without us.”

* * *

Where were they? Danny had looked around the room repeatedly, but they still weren’t there. The door was open, and he had glanced through it again and again, but there were only doctors and nurses milling about in scrubs. They had come every day around the same time. Jazz, Jack and Maddie. Tucker and Sam. They weren’t here. 

Danny sighed and layed back down. They were bound to come soon. Maybe they stopped to eat? In the meantime, he could review what had happened over the past week.

He had woken up like it was the first time at least three times. He has at least three first memories, and he doesn’t want to create another one. Waking up again made him so dizzy that it made him sick to his stomach. The first face he saw was always Maddie. She always said that she was his mother. It made sense, but he wasn’t sure he believed it. Wouldn’t he remember his own mom?

Danny did admit that he looked a lot like Jack, and Jazz--who claimed that she was his sister--looked a lot like Maddie. But what about that man with the silver hair? He was there a week ago, checking up on him constantly, but he was gone now. The only thing Danny accurately remembered about the man was that he had long silver hair tied back in a ponytail and that he only ever wore a business suit.

There was something about that man. He didn’t know what it was, but something inside of him was drawn to him. It wasn’t anything he could put a word to. It wasn’t emotionally or physically or anything of the sort. Something would always tug at the back of Danny’s mind when he saw him. It was almost a memory. Like walking up to a bookshelf to grab a book, only to find that it was just a book’s cover. No book in sight. 

“Daniel?” someone called. 

Danny sat up and looked towards the voice, finding the silver-haired man standing by the window. He was back? What was his name? And “How did you get in here?” he wondered.

“The window,” the man said, approaching Danny’s bed and taking a seat in one of the three chairs that surrounded it. “Do you remember me?”

Danny wasn’t sure how to answer. He remembered him from a week ago but not his name or anything else.

“I’m Vlad,” the man explained.

Vlad? Danny knew that name. The tugging at the edge of his mind grew stronger, but there was still nothing. 

Deciding to change the subject before he gave himself another headache, Danny wondered, “How did you get in through the window? It doesn’t open. And we’re on the fifth floor.”

Vlad smirked a little. “I take it that you don’t remember what you and I can do?”

“What do you mean?”

Vlad opened his mouth to respond when three shadows appeared in the doorway. “Vladdie!” Jack shouted, rushing towards his friend. He fully embraced Vlad, lifting him from his chair. “I knew you’d finish your work soon and come visit!”

“Do you two know each other?” Danny awkwardly wondered.

Jack finally set Vlad down and answered, “Why, Vlad and I were old college chums!” He slapped Vlad on the shoulder.

Vlad smoothed out the fresh wrinkles in his suit as Maddie spoke up. “When did you get in, Vlad?”

“Just a few minutes ago, Maddie,” he said, hardly acknowledging Jack.

“Then we must have just missed you in the hall,” Jazz suggested as she crossed her arms. Her tone was a little heated, but it was clear that she was trying to hide it. 

Danny wanted to ask about it, but thought it was better not to.

* * *

The group spent a couple of hours together talking, and Danny was happy. He didn’t fade away and wake up again this time. Vlad didn’t say much, though it was clear that he wanted to. Eventually, Jack--his dad--fell asleep in his chair and started to snore. Maddie laughed lightly at him before turning to Danny. “Sorry about him,” she said. “He’s hardly slept at all for the past week.”

Danny smiled slightly, but he couldn’t help but feel guilty about it. “Sorry. You guys don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

“Oh, of course we do,” Maddie dismissed. 

“Yeah, Danny,” Jazz agreed. “There’s no way we’d leave you.”

“But you’re going to have to,” a new voice chimed in, gaining the attention of the four still-conscious people. It was a dark-skinned nurse with short, curly hair. “Sorry, but visiting hours are up. And it seems like one of you already needs to get some rest.” She gestured to Jack.

Maddie nodded, and Danny’s heart sank a little. He was always sad when they had to leave, but they always came back the next day. 

“Hey, Dad,” Jazz called, poking her father on the shoulder.

Jack snorted and sat up. “Ghost!” he exclaimed, making Danny jump.

“Calm down, Jack,” Maddie laughed. “You fell asleep. It’s time to go.”

“Aww, Maddie, can’t we stay a little longer, Nurse Andrea?”

“Sorry, Mister Fenton, but visiting hours are up” the nurse repeated. “Everyone who isn’t a patient or hospital staff has to go.”

Jack’s shoulders sunk. “Sorry, Son,” he apologized, patting Danny’s leg. “We’ll be sure to come back tomorrow.”

While Jazz embraced her brother, Danny kept an eye on Vlad. There was something off about him. He didn’t seem normal somehow, and Danny could sense it. 

After Jazz let go, and the three family members were out the door, Danny called for Vlad. “I, uh…” his heart was pounding. He didn’t know why he was so nervous now that no one else was here. “I want to ask you a question.”

Vlad smiled slightly. It was somewhere right in between an evil smirk and a pleased one. It was unsettling to see. “I thought you would.”

His words made Danny even more nervous, but he didn’t know why. It’s not like the man could do anything here in the hospital where there are doctors, cameras, and even the occasional guard. 

“But there will be someone to come and prepare you for the night,” Vlad continued. “Give you dinner and the like. I’ll just be over here.”

Vlad backed into a corner and let himself turn invisible, somewhat enjoying the look of surprise that came over Danny. After a moment, Nurse Andrea had returned with Danny’s dinner. After telling Danny that she would return in about an hour to retrieve the tray, she left, closing the door behind her. 

The boy looked towards Vlad, and he regained visibility. Vlad mentally prepared himself for what he was about to do. Danny didn’t remember how to use his powers, and that could be detrimental to the both of them, but revealing his ghost half to the confused kid could alert the doctors because he might scream.

Vlad took a few steps towards Danny and held his hand up to prevent Danny from speaking. “Before you say anything, I think your questions can at least be partially answered by me doing this.”

Danny’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. He wanted to ask what he meant, but decided to stay silent. 

“Just promise me that you won’t scream?” The older man requested. “It’ll alert the staff here, and then I can’t answer your questions.”

Danny took a second to agree, but eventually, he slowly nodded his head. Whatever Vlad was about to show him must be terrifying, but he wanted answers more than anything. 

Vlad stopped a few feet away from Danny’s bed. He stood there for a moment when a glowing black ring suddenly appeared at his torso. The ring split lengthwise in half, and the two halves travelled in opposite directions, one towards his head and the other towards the ground. After the two rings had completed their journey, what remained behind in Vlad’s place was not human. His skin had turned so pale that he was blue. His eyes were a solid, glowing red, and his hair had shifted from a greyish white to jet black. It was curved and pointed upwards, giving the illusion of horns. His clothes had changed from his casual business suit to a white jumpsuit with black gloves and boots with a white cape that had red on its underside. Danny thought he saw the tip of fangs peeking out from his mouth. And he was glowing.

Danny’s breath quickened, and his heart began to hammer. Everything inside of him told him to get away from the beast, but he didn’t scream. He still wanted answers. Vlad’s transformation made him jump, yes, but it didn’t inherently surprise him. Some part of him seemed to sense that there was something else inside of Vlad that wasn’t quite human.

“Are you afraid?” Vlad asked.

Danny shook his head. “More curious.”

Vlad let out a huff of amusement, finally revealing his fangs as he smiled slightly. “Well, that’s good.”

“Why?”

“Because you have the same powers that I do.” Danny opened his mouth to ask another question, but Vlad held up his hand again to cut him off. “You’ll have to eat first. You’ll need energy for this, and we don’t want you getting in trouble with the nurse, now, do we?”

Danny knew that he was right. It had only happened less than a handful of times, but sometimes his mind would stray. It was almost like he was remembering something. He would get so distracted by it, chasing the memory as long as he could that he would forget that he even had food.

The boy glanced at his tray. It was a chicken sandwich, water and blue Jello in a cup with a plastic spoon. He didn’t even care to eat. He wanted his answers, but it was apparent that the only way he could get them was by getting rid of Andrea. He had wolfed down the sandwich, water and half of the Jello by the time the nurse had arrived.

“Wow!” she exclaimed. “Aren’t we hungry, today?”

Danny chuckled nervously, glancing towards where Vlad was. He shoved down his surprise at not finding the man there and awkwardly massaged the back of his neck. “Yeah. Must be getting better.”

“Must be.” The nurse smiled gently at him, her eyes proud. “Remember that you can call me if you need help, okay?” she reminded as she picked up his empty try.

Danny nodded. “Okay.”

“Good night, Danny,” she called, closing the door behind her as she left the room. 

Danny paused, waiting to hear her footsteps fade. Once they did, he wondered, “How did you do that?”

Vlad regained visibility and smirked slightly at the boy. “I can teach you, if you want.”

“You can teach me how to become invisible?” Danny asked incredulously, putting a hand to his very visible chest.

“Of course.” Vlad came closer to Danny’s bed, taking a seat in the same chair he was sitting in before. “And how to fly and walk through walls. And other abilities.”

“How?” Danny demanded. He was partially conscious of the rising volume of his voice, but he didn’t really care. His curiosity and excitement were too great.


	13. Learning

“Close your eyes,” Vlad instructed. Danny nodded and did so. “Concentrate.”

“On what?”

“Inside of yourself. There is something else inside of you, surging with power.”

Danny did feel something, and the longer he concentrated on it, the stronger the feeling became. It was strange. It was almost like there was another person inside of him that was bursting with energy and pleading to be let out. It was similar to how a little child would react to being stuck in the car, banging on the window while his parents went into a candy store. Danny could’t believe that he hadn’t noticed it before. He has felt anxious and a little stir-crazy since he woke up, but he hasn't had the energy to move.

“Do you feel that?” Vlad asked. “That energy?”

“Yeah,” Danny breathed.

“Now grab it. Bring it closer to the surface.”

Danny imagined himself reaching a hand out and grabbing that energy. He imagined pulling upwards from the depths of the ocean. It was almost too easy. The second he pulled, the energy jumped at the chance to be let out. Danny gasped in surprise at the surge of energy. It left him breathless. He opened his eyes and looked at Vlad, suddenly unsure. Was this safe?

At Vlad’s gentle smile, Danny looked down at himself. His clothes had changed. His hospital gown had been transformed into a black jumpsuit with white gloves and boots. And there was something glowing at the edge of his arm. All over him, in fact. It was the same glow that emanated from Vlad. “What just happened?” he gasped.

“You unlocked that energy,” Vlad explained. “How do you feel? Physically?”

Danny debated for a moment. For the past two weeks, he’s been exhausted. The doctors said that he was malnourished to the point of near death, but that weakness was gone now. His stir-craziness was the only thing he could think about. He wanted to get out. Run a marathon. Do anything that didn’t involve sitting here in this bed. He looked back up at Vlad. “Good. Energized.”

Vlad nodded and stood. Danny took that as an invitation to stand, as well, and swung his legs over the edge of his bed, getting to his feet. He prepared himself to fall. He had only taken a few steps recently, assisted by both Nurse Andrea and a walker, but he didn’t fall this time. His legs were strong. That desire to run a marathon became ten times stronger with that discovery, but then he remembered something that might be even better than running. “You said that you could teach me to fly,” Danny pointed out.

Vlad was planning on teaching the boy if he wanted to learn. It would be his chance to form a relationship with Daniel that was closer to what he wanted, and, fortunately, it looked like Daniel did want to learn. But his main goal was to first teach him to control his transformations. The only reason he hadn’t unwillingly transformed yet was because both his ghost and human halves were so gravely injured. “First, let's see if you can transform back into your human self,” Vlad suggested.

“Why?”

“Because we can’t tell anyone about our abilities.

“Why?”

Vlad almost laughed. He was like a three-year-old. “Because if we do, there is the possibility that we will be hunted down.”

“Hunted down. By who?” Danny wondered, his nerves returning and his eyes narrowing in worry. He couldn’t remember what had happened, but it seemed like he was hunted down once already. Who else would want to hurt him?

Vlad sat back down again, getting eye level with Danny. “There’s this organization,” he began, “called the Guys in White. And they’re not the only ones. There are other groups that operate just like them, but they aren’t professional. The Guys in White are government-funded.”

“What do they do?”

“They’re hunters. They hunt ghosts.”

Danny froze at that. He took a second to process it, but then exploded with questions. “What do you mean ‘ghosts’? Are we ghosts? But I have a heartbeat. I can’t be dead.”

Vlad grabbed his shoulders to hold the panicking boy still. “We’re not dead.”

“Then what are we?” Danny demanded.

“I…” Vlad trailed off. “To tell you the honest truth, I’m not sure. Our DNA has been mixed with spectral--ghost--energy, and it gave us these abilities. We’re half ghost. We’re not dead or full ghosts. Just half.”

Danny took several deep breaths to try and calm himself down. “We-we’re not dead?”

Vlad shook his head. “No. We’re not. We are alive. We are half human, and we have amazing abilities.”

“Like flying and invisibility and walking through walls, right?” At receiving a nod from Vlad and a hum of confirmation, Danny continued, “Those are  _ ghost _ powers.”

“Yes,” Vlad sighed. This would be difficult. The boy was afraid. He doesn’t remember how he got these powers, and he doesn’t know if he’s alive or dead at this point. “Here,” he said, taking Danny’s hand. He took two of the boy’s fingers and placed them on his pale, blue neck. “Do you feel that?”

Danny nodded, surprised at the dull, thumping heartbeat beneath his fingertips.

“Test your own.”

Danny removed his fingers from Vlad’s neck and placed them on his own. There was a heartbeat there. He had a heart. It was faint, but it was there. He was alive.

“You are alive,” Vlad reassured. “And I’m sure you’d like a moment to process all of this before you start learning how to use your powers, right?”

Danny nodded. “Yeah,” he sighed, putting his hand down. “But I still want to learn.”

“Of course. And I’ll teach you, if you want.”

Danny nodded again. “So how do I change back?”

“It’s similar to before,” Vlad explained. “Close your eyes and reach inside of yourself. But instead of bringing the energy out, you’re going to shove it down. Pack it away.”

Danny imagined himself forcing the writhing energy down, shoving it in a box and taping it up. It was considerably more difficult to force the energy down than it was to bring it up, but eventually, that same rush came again, but it happened almost in reverse, like a subsiding ocean wave. Eventually, the energy settled and stopped, and Danny opened his eyes again, glancing down at himself. He was no longer glowing, and his hospital gown had reasserted itself. “I’m kinda disappointed that I’m back to no pants,” Danny quipped.

Vlad laughed. Genuinely laughed. How long had it been since he had done that? “I’m sure. But I’ll be back tomorrow. I can teach you how to turn invisible.”

“What about flying?”

“That’s a more complicated ability,” Vlad pointed out. “It takes longer to figure out. We’ll focus on the basics first.”

Danny suppressed an annoyed groan and shrugged.

Vlad’s small smile remained, though it seemed to get deeper. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, turning his back to Danny and walking towards the window. He stopped there and turned his head back slightly to look at the boy. “Little Badger,” he finished.

Danny jumped at the nickname as Vlad’s form became somewhat transparent. He then slid through the window and flew off. Danny dropped back down onto the bed as the weakness in his legs returned. This was too much to absorb.

He was dead. At least in part. What could have caused this? What on earth could have killed half of him? And why didn’t he die fully? Vlad clearly had more experience in the area of these...ghost powers than he did, and if Vlad didn’t know what they were, how was he to know?


	14. First Sun

Today was the day. He was finally strong enough. He couldn’t go home yet, but he could go outside. He still needed to use a walker but it would be good to go outside. It’s been almost two weeks since Vlad had told him of his powers, but he still hadn’t taught him to fly. He kept insisting that he needed to learn the basics first. It was slow going. He could turn both invisible and intangible. He could turn other objects invisible, but it was much harder to turn them intangible. Vlad said that once he mastered that, he’d teach him how to float. It wasn’t as good as flying, but it was progress.

A knock sounded at the door, and Andrea walked through. “Are you ready, Danny?” she asked, though the expectant look in her face let Danny know that her asking was more of a formality.

Danny nodded his head. “Definitely.”

The nurse smiled. “Then let’s get going.”

She approached his bed and held out a hand. Danny took it and accepted her help to stand. She passed him the wheeled walker, and Danny grasped it. He put more weight on his legs than the walker, though. He hated how weak he was in his human form. Vlad had said that learning to transform and use his powers would gradually reawaken his regeneration ability, and that would accelerate his human half’s healing, but Danny wasn’t sure if he believed him. The doctors expressed amazement at how much faster he was healing, but that didn’t tell Danny anything. The only thing he knew was that he was extremely malnourished and getting gradually better. What else was wrong with him? He had asked Vlad repeatedly, but the older man wouldn’t tell him. He always got a worried and distant look in his eyes when he asked.

When Andrea had finally guided him from his floor of the hospital, down the elevator and outside, Danny looked up, taking a deep, refreshing breath of the outdoor air. The sky was clear and blue, and the sun was bright. If the weather stayed the same, it would be a great night for stargazing.

Stargazing? Did he like to do that?

“Danny!” two voices simultaneously exclaimed.

The boy turned towards the sound and found a girl with a ponytail dressed in black and purple, and a dark-skinned boy in a bright red beret barreling towards him. Tucker and Sam. Danny stood up a little straighter at the sight of them.

When the two teenagers reached him, they both pulled him into a hug that was so tight that Danny could hardly breathe. Danny’s walker was suddenly kicked out of the way, making him lose balance, and the weight of the two other people did not help him to stay upright. All three of them went down onto the ground, earning a loud scolding from Andrea. “Be careful!” The nurse shoved the two laughing teenagers off of the laughing and smiling Danny and offered him a hand. Once Danny took it, she carefully pulled him up from the ground and gave him back his walker. After making sure that her patient was steady again, Andrea turned back to Tucker and Sam. “You don’t want to hurt him, do you? You don’t want to make him stay here longer than he has to, right?”

They both shook their heads. “Sorry, Nurse Andrea,” Sam apologized, her laughter beginning to die down.

Tucker awkwardly massaged the back of his neck. “Yeah. Sorry. We’re just really excited to see him, you know?”

“I understand, but be careful with him, okay? He might be stronger, but he’s still recovering,” Andrea cautioned. “If anything happens, just holler through that door.” She gestured towards the pair of glass doors that lead into the hospital’s cafeteria. “Someone will respond. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the three acknowledged.

“Good. Then I’m off on my rounds.” She turned to Danny. “You have an hour out here, and then I’ll come get you, okay?”

Danny nodded. “Okay.”

As Nurse Andrea walked off, Sam placed a gentle hand on Danny’s thin shoulder. “Let’s go sit down.”

Danny nodded. His legs were beginning to ache after standing up for so long. 

Sam and Tucker lead Danny towards one of the wooden picnic tables in the garden area, and the three sat down on the benches. Sam sat next to Danny, and Tucker sat across from them. “It’s good to see you outside, Danny,” Sam said.

“Yeah,” Danny sighed, glancing up at the sky. “Hey. Do-do I like stargazing?”

Sam and Tucker froze, glancing at each other. “Yes! Tucker exclaimed. “It’s one of your favorite things.”

“You, Tucker and I would sit on top of the roof of the Op’s Center on weekend nights and play around with your telescope,” Sam added.

“Op’s Center?” Danny asked, glancing at them both.

Tucker waved a dismissive hand. “Your parents are a little nuts.”

“Well, I’ve gathered that part,” Danny laughed. “I’ve lost count of how many times Jack--Dad--has shouted ‘GHOST!’ since I’ve known him.”

Both Sam and Tucker laughed at the comment, but the laughter slowly pittered off. “Speaking of ghosts, Danny…” Sam trailed off.

“We have something to talk to you about,” Tucker finished as Sam reached into her purple, spider-shaped bag.

Sam pulled out a purple scrapbook and opened it up, revealing a picture of Danny in his ghost form, floating off the ground with crossed arms and a smile of his face in front of a glowing, green doorway.

Danny pointed at the glowing door and asked, “What’s that?”

“ _ That _ is the entrance into the world known as The Ghost Zone,” Sam explained. 

Tucker added, “Your parents built it, but it didn’t work. You went in to check it out, and something happened.”

“It exploded with ghost energy,” Sam continued. “You got completely bombarded with it. We though you died.”

“But you came back out.” Tucker pointed at the image of Danny’s ghost form. “As that. A Half Ghost.”

Throughout Sam and Tucker’s story, Danny’s eyebrows furrowed more and more at how familiar it sounded. “Is that how it happened?” he muttered, but then something occurred to him, and he looked up at them. “You guys know?”

Sam and Tucker looked at each other. “ _ You _ know?” they both questioned.

“How did you find out?” Sam demanded.

“We thought you didn’t remember anything,” Tucker said.

“I didn’t. And I still don’t,” Danny said. “I always felt kind of strange since I woke up. A strange mixture of exhausted and energized. And then Vlad came around the other day, and--”

Tucker held up a hand. “Wait. Vlad? As in  _ Vlad _ Vlad?”

“Yeah. That guy with white hair and always dresses in business suits?” Danny added.

“Yep. That’s him,” Sam confirmed. “What did he tell you?” 

Sam’s voice and expression were suddenly so guarded that Danny didn’t know exactly how to respond, but he went forward with it anyways. “He taught me how to bring my ghost half out and how to turn invisible and intangible.”

“What else?” Tucker insisted.

Danny thought back. “He told me about the Guys in White and why we couldn’t tell anyone about our powers. I’m surprised that you guys know.”

“Well, we were there when it happened,” Tucker pointed out. “It would be hard to  _ not _ know.”

“Danny, you can’t trust him,” Sam cautioned.

“Why not?” Danny wondered. “I might not remember much, but he’s been nothing but nice to me since I woke up. He’s been teaching me. Helping me to control my powers, and as far as I know, he’s the only other one like me. Who better to teach me? And my dad likes him, so why shouldn’t I trust him?”

Sam sighed and placed a gentle hand on Danny’s. “He’s a liar. A snake. He’s tried to kill you. He kidnapped you and tortured you for hours just to get a special DNA sample from you.”

Danny was quiet.

Tucker chimed in, too. “He keeps trying to date your mom and waste your dad. He kidnapped you and Jazz and forced you to fight each other. You both did manage to escape, though.”

“Bu-but he…” Danny trailed off, trying to make sense of what they were saying. “He says my parents are ghost hunters,” Danny added, slightly changing the subject. He didn’t know if the topic was the cause of it or not, but his head was beginning to pound and it was growing steadily more powerful and painful. “He says that we can’t tell them about our powers because they’ll kill us both and experiment on us like the Guys in White. What about that?”

“They are ghost hunters, but we know for a fact, that they won’t experiment on you or hurt you at all,” Tucker said.

“How can you know that?” Danny demanded.

“Because they did find out,” Sam explained.

Both Sam and Tucker launched into a lengthy explanation of Danny’s disappearance. At first, it didn’t make much sense, but at the mention of the room made of red stone that was filled with fire, something sparked in Danny. In the back of his mind, a faint image was starting to form. It was painted with red, and it wasn’t just the red stone of the room.

A sudden and sharp pain stabbed Danny in the head. Danny cried out and put a hand to his temple.

“Danny?”

“Are you okay?”

He knew that the two voices were Sam and Tucker, but he couldn’t identify which was which. His ears were ringing, and there was whispering. A voice. It wasn’t either Sam or Tucker, but he still knew the voice. It wasn’t his mom or dad or sister. Not even Vlad. But he still knew that voice. It was harsh and falsely polite with what seemed to be a fake English accent. 

The world suddenly tilted, and there was shouting everywhere. The glare of the bright sun in his eyes was slowly dimming. 

No. He didn’t want to forget. This is what usually happens when he forgot.

But there was something different this time. The sun was dimming, but it was being replaced by a strange red mist. Danny shut his eyes against it. He didn’t remember what it was, but he knew that it was dangerous. 

The whispering voice grew louder and louder, and it was occasionally joined by a second voice. It was deep and had a thick southern accent. Danny strained to try and make out what they were saying, but the two voices were echoing and overlapping so badly that he could only catch a few words. They were mostly simple, one word commands uttered by the first voice. “Sleep. Wake. Forget. Protect.” 


	15. Strenuous Partnership

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is the longest chapter in the whole fic. Enjoy!

As he was going over the notes and contract from the last budget meeting for approval, Vlad got out his pen, preparing to sign it. His cell phone vibrated and rang in his pocket as he finished off his signature. He took out his phone and absentmindedly flipped it open, putting it to his ear. “Hello?” he greeted, clicking his pen closed and putting it back in its place. 

“Vlad!” the voice on the other end called.

The Half Ghost suppressed a groan of annoyance. “What is it, Jack?” he wondered, straining to keep his voice cordial. 

“It’s Danny!”

Vlad instantly sat up straighter at his words, his heart racing. “What happened?”

“He had some kind of attack!” Jack said. “Sam and Tucker were with him when he suddenly screamed and passed out!”

In the background, Vlad faintly heard the tires screech and Jasmine shout, “Watch out, Mom! We’ll be no use to Danny if you kill us on the way to the hospital!”

“Can you come away from your work for a few hours and see him?” Jack requested. “He’s seemed to really brighten up since you’ve come back around.”

Vlad nodded, only partially aware of the fact that Jack couldn’t see him. “Of course.”

He still had work to do, but he could duplicate and have that ghostly duplicate change into human form and finish it for him. Daniel was more important right now.

Vlad checked around, glancing through the windows of his office. After making sure no one could see him, he turned invisible and transformed. He created his duplicate and stood, allowing the duplicate to change into human form and take his seat. Vlad took off through the window of his office, flying as fast as he could towards Amity Park. After flying for about an hour, he figured that he was close enough. Vlad slowed and landed on a nearby rooftop. He closed his eyes and concentrated on his teleportation ability. 

After a moment or two, the familiar, suffocating feeling sealed his chest, forcing all the air out of his lungs. A second later, he appeared on the roof of a different building near the Amity Park General Hospital. Vlad gasped for air once the teleportation was completed, struggling to stay upright. This was the one power that full ghost had the advantage on in his opinion. Full ghosts didn’t have to breathe, so converting their entire form into light molecules and shooting themselves towards any destination wasn’t a problem for them. For him and Daniel, however, they were limited by their need for oxygen. But it’s not like he was complaining. He could go quite far at the speed of light in the thirty seconds or minute that he could hold his breath.

Once the light headedness had vanished, Vlad stood upright and jumped off the roof, drifting down slowly to the ground. He turned invisible the instant he landed and morphed back into his human form just as the recognizable silver Fenton Family Assault Vehicle pulled into the parking lot. Vlad regained visibility as the family of three got out of their RV.

“Vlad!” Jack called the second he spotted him across the parking lot. Jack jogged up to Vlad, and the two met in the middle. “Thanks for coming.” Jack put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I’m sure it’ll mean a lot to Danny.”

Vlad nodded. “Glad to come,” he said, gently sliding out of Jack’s hold.

“Let’s go, Dad!” Jasmine’s voice yelled from the door of the hospital.

Both Jack and Vlad ran towards the hospital and burst through the door. “What happened to my son!” a harsh voice demanded. 

It was Maddie. Vlad looked towards her and found her holding Daniel’s nurse by the collar of her scrubbs.

“Ma’am, you’re going to need to let go, or I  _ will _ call for security and have you removed,” the nurse warned.

“Maddie,” Vlad gently called, slowly walking up behind her. “Let go of her. You do want to see Daniel, don’t you?”

It took a second, but Maddie eventually sighed and released her hold on Nurse Andrea, her shoulders slumping. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, glancing at the floor. “Please, just tell me what happened.”

Daniel’s nurse straightened her scrubbs before answering, “I’m not sure. I wasn’t there. But if you’ll follow me to the waiting room, I’m sure Danny’s friends can give you a clearer answer.”

“So you don’t know anything?” Jasmine added, her voice crisp and tense.

The nurse shook her head. “I heard some comotion, and then my pager went off, saying that Danny was in medical trouble. The doctors are looking him over right now, but as far as I know, he’s still unconscious. Just follow me, okay?”

“Lead the way,” Jack said, placing a gentle hand on his wife’s shoulder.

Nurse Andrea nodded, turned her back to them and started down the hall. The walk was short, but when they arrived, Jazz instantly spotted Sam and Tucker. Jazz rushed over to them and quickly took a seat beside them. “What happened?” she demanded, her voice hushed in case this was ghost related.

“We're not exactly sure,” Tucker slowly answered, glancing at Sam. “We were showing him pictures from Sam’s scrapbook to try and jog his memory, and I think that we did.”

“The topic of conversation strayed towards what happened in that red, stone room,” Sam continued. “Then he put a hand to his head and cried out like he was being stabbed or something and fell to the ground. Tucker went to grab a doctor, and I tried to keep his focus on me, but…” She trailed off.

The second of silence might as well have been three years for Jazz. “But  _ what _ ?” she said sharply.

Sam lowered her voice even more. “His eyes were red.”

“It could have something to do with what happened while he was missing,” a new voice suggested.

The three looked at Vlad who had taken a seat beside them. Jazz still didn’t trust the man, but he had won a little respect from her for putting aside his pride and helping to rescue Danny. And he had a lot more experience with the Ghost Zone and ghostly artifacts than they did, so his advice might be useful. “What do you mean?” she wondered.

“His eyes were red the entire time he was under that scepter’s control,” Vlad clarified. 

“Yeah, we know that,” Sam pointed out heatedly.

“It was like that the last time, too,” Tucker added. “But once the crystal ball of the staff got shattered, its power disappeared. And there were no lasting effects.”

“What was Freakshow having him do the first time?” Vlad asked.

“Steal stuff from high security banks,” Sam answered.

“Anything that could be interpreted as long term?” Vlad pressed.

Sam and Tucker glanced at each other, thinking. They both shook their heads, but it was Sam who spoke up. “We weren’t there for all of it, but I know one order was to ‘make people see you for who you are’ and to ‘get her’ meaning me.”

Vlad nodded his head in contemplation. “I’ve been theorizing about this for a while,” he said, “and I studied the staff when I first got my hands on it. What I found out was that the smoke inside of the crystal ball was designed to essentially hijack a ghost core--their heart--and force it into compliance. The more exposure, the easier it would be to subdue the ghost. It’s possible that Freakshow ordered Daniel to forget his life, and since Daniel was around both the staff and the smoke in that red room for so long, it might have had lasting effects.”

“You mean that Danny could still be being controlled by the staff and obeying the order to forget?” Jazz wondered, earning a nod of confirmation from Vlad. “Is there any way to reverse it?”

“I’m not sure. It could dissipate with time, but since we don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with, there’s always the possibility that it will never go away," Vlad warned.  


“Never?” Jazz wondered. She wanted to scream the word, but she forced her voice to remain low so that her parents wouldn’t hear.

“Could awakening his ghost half like you’ve been doing help fight that or make it worse?” Sam asked.

“Wait, what?” Jazz said, holding up a hand.

“Oh, yeah, Jazz. We forgot to tell you,” Tucker said, his voice filled to the brim with sarcasm. “Vladdie here has been seeing Danny alone behind our backs ‘helping’ him rediscover his ghost half.”

“Oh, honestly,” Vlad scoffed. “You three are so childish. Who better than me to help Daniel with that? How much do you three teenagers even really know about a ghost half and how it operates? And did you really think that Daniel would believe you if he hadn't been told by someone who was just like him? You couldn’t even prove to him that a regular ghost is real, let alone a half ghost.”

The three glared at him but remained silent. It was strange to think about, but not only was he right, they needed his help. They needed his knowledge of and experience with ghostly artifacts. He hated Danny’s father, but he clearly cared for Danny himself. After what happened in the red room, they didn’t think that Vlad would want to do Danny any harm. If he wanted to, he could have done so when he was alone with Danny, but instead, he was teaching him and helping him rediscover his ghost half. 

“How do you suggest that we investigate this?” Jazz asked, trying to change the subject to something slightly more pressing. 

“We?” Vlad laughed. He opened his mouth to continue, but Sam cut him off.

“Yes. We. We don’t want you going rogue on us--” She pointed a sharp finger at him. “--and trying to come up with some evil plan to try and control Danny and make him your sick, artificial son.”

“Now, would I do that?”

“Yes,” the three teenagers simultaneously answered.

“Fenton family?” an unrecognized voice announced, pulling the group’s attention.

“Yes?” Maddie gasped, rushing up from her seat. “Will he be alright?”

“Yes, your son will be fine,” the white coated man assured, earning a heave of relief from Maddie. “We didn’t find anything wrong with him on the outside, but considering his memory issues, we gave him an MRI.”

“What did you find?” Jazz cautiously wondered as she got up from her seat and approached the doctor.

“We found some strange activity in his hippocampus--”

“That’s the memory center,” Jazz interrupted, whispering her words to her parents.

“Yes, it is” the doctor laughed. 

“What kind of activity?” Vlad asked.

“We aren’t exactly sure,” the doctor answered. “There were moments of high, gradually increasing activity that would suddenly stop and diminish quickly. It was almost like he was trying to remember but there was something blocking him from doing so.”

“What do you suggest?” Jack requested.

“Well, his physical problems are almost over, so I suggest that he spend a few more days here for observation, and then he can go home. He needs to continue to eat well and do his physical therapy.”

“Can you tell if his memory will return?” Maddie pleaded.

“We’re not sure. Head injuries are strange,” the doctor cautioned. “I can refer you to a psychiatrist that will be of more help in that department. There doesn’t seem to be anything physically wrong with his brain, so we have to assume--as long as he doesn’t have another fainting spell--that it’s a psychological issue.”

The family nodded. “Can we see him?” Maddie asked.

The doctor nodded. “He’s just beginning to wake up, so he’s groggy. Not sure how much you’ll get out of it, but your presence might help him. Let me take you to his room.”

The group followed the doctor directly to Danny's room. “Hit the call button if there’s an issue,” he instructed.  Jack nodded at the doctor, and then he took his leave to see other patients. 

“Danny?” Maddie whispered, lightly patting her son’s shoulder. “Can you hear me, sweetie.”

Jazz and Jack rushed up to Danny’s bedside on the opposite side of Maddie. Tucker and Sam came up to Maddie’s side, leaving Vlad to stand at the foot of his bed. Danny groaned, though thankfully it didn’t sound like it was from pain. It seemed to be one of those annoyed groans that anyone would utter if someone was being forcefully woken up.  “Danny?” Maddie continued. “Can you hear us?”

Danny’s head lolled to the side, so that his face was towards his mother. His eyes fluttered until they cracked open. He gave a small hum of confirmation. “Hey, mom,” he whispered, his voice so quiet that Vlad assumed he was the only one who heard it. 

Maddie’s eyes lit up like an entire city on Christmas night. 

* * *

“Are you sure we’ll figure it out there?” Jazz interrogated as she sat across from Vlad Plasmius in the Specter Speeder.

Vlad couldn’t hide his annoyed sigh this time. “Do you have any  _ better _ ideas?”

Jasmine’s shoulders slumped, and her gaze dropped to the floor. “No, I don’t.” She took a breath and sat up a little, picking up her head and resting her elbows on her thighs. “I’m sorry. I just want to help him.”

Vlad internally kicked himself but kept his facial expression neutral. She was feeling the same things that he was when he decided to go out and look for Daniel. He was worried and somewhat afraid. Jasmine must be feeling the same stress. She wasn’t being confrontational just for the sake of it like Samantha and Tucker were. And even then, Vlad doubted that the two younger teenagers were fighting him for the sake of it either.

“I don’t know anymore about this than you do. That red room is the best place to start,” Vlad assured, his tone calmer than before. “If we can get a sample of the stones, the flame, and the smoke, we can analyze it, and learn how they work. Once we figure that out, we can reverse all that Freakshow did to him while he was gone.”

“How do you suggest that we take a sample of smoke?” Tucker voiced from the front. He must have been listening in.

“It’s ghostly smoke,” Vlad explained. “It’s been captured before in the red crystal. We should be able to capture it with my ghostly abilities.”

“You’re just  _ loving _ this, aren’t you?” Sam snapped from the driver’s seat. 

“Loving what, Samantha?” Vlad sighed, internally enjoying the annoyed twitch of Samantha’s eyebrow in the rear-view mirror.

“Danny actually liking you, Mister Fenton somewhat leaving you alone, both our and Danny’s current dependence on you,” she listed. “But mark my words, Masters.” The girl let go of the steering wheel and rounded on Vlad, giving him a hard glare. “The  _ second _ this is over, we will no longer be friends. And we will try our hardest to keep Danny away from you.”

“If that’s how you feel,” Vlad mocked. He didn’t care what these three did after this was over. They were nothing more than an annoyance. As long as Daniel still wanted to learn from him. And the boy was so stubborn that he would most likely sneak away from them to come learn anyways.

“We have our own lab. How about we both take our own samples and study them separately,” Jasmine suggested, her hands up in a pacifying gesture. One of her palms was facing Vlad, and the other was towards Samantha.

The black-clad teenager let out an exasperated sigh, rolled her eyes and turned back around to resume her driving. “Sounds fine to me.”

It took a few hours, but eventually, they arrived at the red, stone castle. When they were about to disembark the Speeder, Jasmine received a call. She pulled out her phone and looked at the caller ID: her parents. “How is it we have bars here?” she absentmindedly wondered aloud as she flipped open her phone and put it to her ear. “Yeah, Mom?”

“Where are you, Jazz?”

“With Sam and Tucker,” she answered. “All three of us have tests coming up, so we’re studying.”

“Well, don’t you want to come with us and see Danny?” her mom wondered. “He’s coming home tomorrow.”

“Mhmm,” she hummed. “I know. I’ve been away from school for a really long time, though, and this test is really important. Go on ahead. I don’t think we’ll be that long. I might even be able to meet you at the hospital.”

Maddie hesitated on the other end of the line. “Well, okay,” she eventually answered. “But only if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” Jazz said, a small smile on her face.

“Alright, then. Don’t study too long, okay?”

“Okay, mom.” Jazz hung up her phone and put it back in her pocket.

“That reminds me!” Tucker shouted. “We actually  _ do _ have a test coming up!”

“Gah!” Sam exclaimed. “You’re right! With all that’s going on, I completely forgot about it!” She sighed and shook her head. “We do need to study, but not for the test. This is more important.”

“Yeah, I know,” Tucker agreed. “It just gave me a scare.”

“It doesn't matter,” Vlad interjected. “What does matter is getting these samples.” He was tired of these bickering teenagers. Daniel might not ever remember who he is, and it was possible that he would continually forget and have to relearn everything repeatedly. That was much more important than some stupid test. “Let’s go.”

Vlad stood and intangibly dropped through the floor of the Speeder. The three teenagers opened the exit hatch and jumped out. Tucker closed the door and secured the Speeder. Vlad forced himself to wait for the three as they practically swam through the ghostly air. They were slow and unused to the gravityless atmosphere. He didn’t want to give them any more reason to distrust him or attempt to kill him. Not only would it be a nuisance, but he might end up killing them in the end. He couldn’t kill a kid. It would give him nightmares.

It was slow progress, but eventually, the group made it into the castle. Once the three teenagers finally landed on solid ground, they began to move much faster, but this is where Vlad wanted to slow down. “We should inspect here in this room, too,” he said.

Jasmine nodded in agreement. “We didn’t get the chance to take a look at anything up here, Sam,” she reminded, cutting off Samantha’s readied protest. “There could be a clue up here.”

“I guess you look up high, and we’ll look down low?” Tucker mockingly suggested with a shrug.

Vlad ignored the comment and remained afloat, inspecting the walls. There didn’t appear to be anything special about the red stone, but Vlad could sense faint ghostly power inside of it, and it grew stronger down below. The building itself was all but empty. It was practically hollow. The ceiling was high, and the stone support beams were visible. The place was darkened, the only light coming from the doorway that led below. The very stone that it was made from radiated with ghost energy. It was shocking that it wasn’t ever taken over by power hungry ghost like Pariah Dark yet.

Glancing down one of the dark hallways, Vlad glided down it. There was nothing in the empty main chamber to investigate, so might as well move on. The hall led to another chamber that was smaller than the last, but it was filled with instruments. It looked to be some strange mixture of a library and a darkened forge. There was an anvil, various hammers and shaping tools, a bellows, and what looked to be a mould.

Vlad drifted towards the mould and landed on the ground. He inspected the empty mould and almost took a step back from it at the discovery. It was in the shape of the staff. There was some sort of oven that could have been used for blowing glass at one time, and that must have been where the red crystal that adorned the top of the staff had come from. 

So this place was the origin of the staff. But someone had to have made it. Vlad approached the singular bookshelf in the room and scanned the spines of the dusty books. There were no titles on them. Vlad selected a book at random and flipped through it, skimming through the words. It appeared to be history.

* * *

“Okay,” Tucker sighed. “Let’s get started.”

The three teenagers each scanned a different wall. After a few minutes of searching blank, red, rock, Jazz finally spoke up. “I think we should take a sample of this stone?” she suggested.

“Go ahead,” Sam permissed.

Jazz moved to a rough corner on the wall and took her small ecto gun out of her pocket. She dialed down the blast strength and shot at the corner of the wall, dislodging a couple of small stones. She picked them up and put it into her pocket. She looked around the room for Vlad to tell him that she got a sample of the rock when she noticed that he wasn’t there.  “Hey, guys?” she called.

“What?” Sam and Tucker answered, turning towards her. 

“Where’s Vlad?”

Sam groaned. “I knew it was too quiet in here.” Noticing a dark hall she suggested, “Let’s go look for him down there.”

The other two nodded and charged down the corridor until they came across another room. It was smaller than the last one, but it was still quite large. Vlad was found leaning against a bookshelf flipping through the pages of a book.

“Where did you go?” Sam demanded, her hand fingering her wrist watch that contained her ecto blaster.

Vlad glanced up from the book in his gloved hands. “I thought we were investigating the castle,” he said, his voice sarcastic.

Sam growled.

“Hey!” Tucker shouted.

“What?” Sam responded, over taking his volume.

“Fighting with Vlad will solve nothing,” he cautioned. “And besides, it looks like he found the origin of the staff.” He gestured to the empty mould.

“These books contain what looks like the history of the staff,” Vlad added. “It appears to be both the how and the why it was created.”

“Well, it’s getting late,” Jazz reminded. “I think that we should head back home before we’re missed.”

“Then why don’t I stay here and scan each of these pages on my PDA while you guys go get the rest of the samples,” Tucker suggested.

“I doubt that you can scan all of the pages, Tuck,” Jazz said, gesturing towards the full bookshelf. “I have my phone. I’ll stay with you and take pictures, too.”

“I’m  _ scanning _ , Jazz. Not taking pictures,” Tucker reminded. “It’s different.”

Sam rolled her eyes. “I guess that leaves you and me for taking samples.”

Vlad nodded, not wanting to argue with teenagers.

“Oh, Vlad,” Jazz called. “I almost forgot.” She slipped her hand into her pocket and took out a rock, holding it out to Vlad. “It’s from the wall.

Vlad nodded again and took it from her, putting it into his own pocket. Vlad left Jasmine and Tucker to take pictures of the book pages and led the way through the castle to the dungeon filled with fire. Once they got there, Vlad crossed towards the center of the thin, stone bridge and stared at the flames.

He still felt the pull on his core the same as the last time he was here, but it wasn’t as strong. It was probably due to the fact that his emotions were more steady now that Daniel was safe. 

Vlad reached into the left pocket of his jumpsuit and took out the two ghost energy-infused sample bottles. He brought the attributes of his heated ghost core to the surface and unstoppered both small bottles. He dipped them both into the flames and brought them back out again, filled with fire. He quickly recapped the bottles and held one out to Samantha.

She roughly snatched it from his hand. Vlad ignored her actions and got to his feet. He crossed the rest of the bridge, feeling Samantha’s glare burning holes into his back. 

Vlad set about using his ectoplasmic energy blasts to dislodge small stones from everywhere in the gazebo. He placed his hand against each pillar and delivered a small, low powered blast, catching at least two stones in his hand. He took out two bottles that he had already labeled before heading out here and put at stone in each. One for the front left pillar, left back pillar, right front, and right back, and he handed one of each to Samantha who took it from his hand in the same manner as before.

He was in the process of blasting the rock wall that Daniel was strapped to when Samantha finally spoke up. “Why did you do it?”

Vlad glanced at her before releasing the blast on the rock wall. “Do what?” He collected the two needed stones and bottled them, holding one to the black-clad teenager, but she didn’t take it.

“Why did you help us rescue Danny?” she repeated. “And why did you help his dad avoid prison after it was over? And why are you helping us now?”

“I’m not helping you,” Vlad corrected. “I am merely tolerating your prince while I do my own investigating.”

Vlad approached the large round sphere in the center of the gazebo. Now that he had a chance to process it, he realized just how large this stone ball was. It was almost up to his chest. He put a hand to it and delivered his blast, only to hiss in pain when it reflected back to him.

“What?” Samantha wondered.

“I don’t think we can take a sample of this sphere,” he said. “It reflected my blast back at me.”

“Here, let me try.” She lifted her hand and extended the wrist blaster inside her watch. She released her blast, and when it connected, the stone instantly rejected it, sending it directly back towards her.

Sam ducked, narrowly avoiding the blast. It connected with the wall of the chamber instead, sending a shower of rock down into the fires. 

“Let’s take a sample of the smoke,” Vlad suggested, moving away from the sphere as he thought about it.

Back then, almost a month ago, that thing was sucking out Daniel’s life force. His soul. Contrary to what people might think, a ghost does have a soul, everyone does, and the powers that ghosts and half ghosts have--their ectoblasts, flight, invisibility and intangibility, his electrical powers, and Daniel’s cold powers--were, in some part, manifestations of their souls. Ghosts and half ghosts have the ability to use their souls as weapons. So clearly, that sphere was designed to contain not just ectoplasmic energy, but something much more powerful. If it was supposed to keep that power inside, it must only be vulnerable when it was opened up and actively extracting a soul. 

“Are you ever going to answer me?” Samantha demanded, pulling Vlad from his theorizing. 

Vlad sighed and stopped back in the center of the stone bridge. “I have my own reasons for helping him and you.”

“No. That’s not good enough,” Sam snapped. “I need a straight answer today. A real one.”

Vlad lifted his hands and generated a hollow bubble of pink ectoplasmic energy over the fires, capturing some of the smoke.

A green blast suddenly singed his hand, making him drop his concentration. The ectoplasmic bubble popped, releasing the smoke. “What was that about!” he shouted, rounding on the teenager.

Samantha had her weapon pointed towards him and ready to fire again. “I want an answer. Now! Why did you help Danny?”

“Because I wanted to!” Vlad shouted, finally losing his cool. He took large threatening steps towards the girl, making her back up. “I wanted to help Daniel, and I only helped his father because helping him meant helping Daniel. It was the boy’s best chance to heal and remember, and in my opinion, you should be thanking me rather than threatening me with your puny little weapon!”

Sam had her back pressed against one of the stone pillars of the gazebo now. Her heart was hammering, and she raised her gun higher. She wasn’t going to die here today. But she wasn’t discounting what Plasmius was saying either. He actually wanted to help Danny? Of his own accord?

Vlad backed off, turning back to the smoking flames. He lifted his hands again and regenerated the hollow bubble of energy and enclosed it around the smoke. He drew the bubble towards him and took out both of the bottles, using his thumb to unstopper them in his pocket. He brought the openings of the bottles to the surface of the hollow bubble and opened it slightly, releasing some of the smoke into the bottles. “I could use your hand,” he said, barely glancing at Samantha.

The girl gradually lowered her weapon and approached. She slipped her hand on top of the bottles, and Vlad released the bubble. He put the stoppers back in their place as quickly as he could, saving the smoke.

He held out one of the small bottles to Sam, and she took it from him more gently than she has previously. “Be careful when you study the smoke,” he cautioned. “If you can’t keep it contained, it will disappear.”

Sam nodded as Plasmius turned his back to her. Did he really want to help Danny and nothing more?


	16. PT

Tonight was the night! His first flight with Vlad. Sam and Tucker still insisted that he shouldn’t trust Vlad, but they had seemed to back off recently. Jazz and Tucker have at least agreed that as long as he remained cautious and told them what he did with Vlad, they didn’t mind him learning from the man. Sam, on the other hand, still resisted the idea. She wasn’t loud or insistent like she used to be, though. Whenever Vlad was mentioned, she crossed her arms, and her expression grew hard. But the three of them as a whole have kind of disappeared. They still came around, but not as often as they used to. He’s been home for a week, but they’ve only ever been in the basement lab talking about something. When Danny went down the stairs on his crutches, they instantly stopped talking, so it was obvious that they were talking about him.

Danny wanted to talk to them about it, but they always ducked the subject. And to add to that, whenever he was in the basement, his head steadily began to pound. He didn’t know what caused it, but the sight of the large, metal doorway surrounded by black and yellow striped caution tape made his heart beat terribly fast, and Jazz, Sam, and Tucker quickly took him out of the room. They explained to him that it was the doorway that led to the Ghost Zone, and that it was what had turned him into a half ghost. Jazz insisted that it was latent memories that were causing his chest to tighten every time he saw the door. She taught him several techniques to try and relax and get his memory back. He kept trying to meditate with her to regain his memory, but it made his head pound so hard that the lights on the ceiling made his eyes hurt, and if he powered through that, he ended up seeing colors, though he never told anyone about the colors part. 

“Do you need help getting ready for bed tonight, Danny?” Maddie asked, looking up from her dinner.

Danny shook his head. “I’m going to try it on my own tonight.”

Danny was kind of irritated each night when his mom and dad insisted that either of them or Jazz helped him get ready for bed. He was strong enough to do it on his own. When Jazz was the one to do it, she mostly just sat on the edge of the tub and talked to him, though, so if he had to pick one of them to help him, he would pick Jazz. 

“Are you sure, Son?” Jack wondered.

Danny nodded. “I’m sure. I’m strong enough to do it on my own. But is it okay if I stay up a bit tonight? I’m not really tired.”

Maddie and Jack looked at each other, both of their mouths parted in a hesitant grimace. 

“I think its a good idea,” Jazz spoke up. “If he’s not tired, it means that his energy levels are getting back to normal.”

The two parents were both still privately debating, but eventually, Maddie gave Danny a gentle smile. “Sure. Why not? But Jazz has to stay with you, and you better be in bed  _ before _ midnight.”

“And your mother and I will be down in the lab, so if anything bad happens, just holler, okay?” Jack reminded.

Just at that moment, there was a knock at the door. “Were you guys expecting anyone tonight?” Jazz wondered, getting up from her seat.

Maddie shook her head. 

“Vladdie said that he couldn’t come by today because of something with one of of his companies,” Jack added. 

Danny grabbed his crutches from where they were leaning against the kitchen table and turned in his seat. He carefully put his weight on them and got up, following his three family members into the front room. He watched from further away as his father opened up the door, revealing an average height, bald man with a rather large stomach drooping over his belt. “My apologies for the late call, but I spent a while debating if I should come,” he said.

“Not at all, Mister Lancer,” Jack assured. “Are you here to see Danny?”

“If that’s not a bother,” Lancer said.

“Danny?” Maddie called, turning towards her son. “What do you think?” She gestured to the man.

Danny looked the man up and down. He looked rather kind, and his eyebrows were drawn together in some sort of worry. Danny shrugged. “I guess so.”

Lancer looked somewhat confused as he entered. He leaned closer to his father as he closed the door and whispered something. Danny did as Vlad had taught him and concentrated, enhancing his hearing. He didn’t catch what Lancer had asked, but he did catch his dad’s response. “He’s lost his memory. We’re still working on getting it back. He’s due for an appointment with a psychiatrist next week.”

Lancer nodded and slowly approached Danny. “I’m your teacher from high school, Danny. Mister Lancer.”

The name did ring a bell that went back further than a minute ago, but not much else. Danny nodded. “Nice to meet you. Again,” he said, not sure what to say.

Mister Lancer glanced cautiously at Danny’s still-thin legs. “Do you need to sit down?”

Danny shrugged again. Finding out that this man was his teacher before whatever happened happened made this situation much more awkward than if he was a stranger. “If you would want to.”

Mister Lancer nodded and approached the sofa, taking a seat. Danny followed his lead as the teacher started to speak. “I heard you had gotten out of the hospital, and I came to check up on you,” he explained.

“Well, I’m good,” Danny responded. “Still a little weak, but I have physical therapy exercises and some meds that’re getting my nutrients back to the level they’re supposed to be, and I had an appointment at the hospital for a check-up yesterday, so all good.”

“Good,” Lancer congratulated with a smile. “That’s really good. Well, since I’m your teacher I have an obligation of sorts to see if or when you’re ready to return to school.”

“The doctors say that his cognitive function is one hundred per cent,” Jazz spoke up, sitting in the cushioned chair next to the sofa.

“Alright, so I suppose it just depends on if you’re mentally or emotionally ready. There is no rush for you to get back into it,” Lancer assured. “I heard that you were going to have an appointment with a psychiatrist soon, so please take their recommendation, and feel free to get back into school at your own pace. And who knows? The familiar surroundings and activities might just help get your memory back.”

Danny nodded. “Thanks for coming,” he said, smiling a little. This was so awkward. Everything was so awkward. Everyone around him knew everything about him, and he still knew nothing.

Mister Lancer returned Danny’s small and strained smile and got up from the sofa. He turned to Jack and Maddie who were standing in the doorway of the kitchen. “Thanks for letting me in. It was good to see him safe,” he gratefully muttered.

“Of course,” Maddie dismissed, showing him to the door.

* * *

Later that night, Danny was sitting on his bed looking out his window. It was almost two in the morning. Where was Vlad? He usually came around this time with a variation of a few minutes, but the wait was always frustrating. He loved learning about his powers. It took away the still-lingering weakness in his muscles. The doctors assured him that if he kept up with his physical therapy that it would dissipate in a few days, at most a week and a half, but his progress was agonizingly slow. 

A knock sounded on the glass of his window, and though Danny looked up, he didn’t see anything. Vlad must be invisible.

Danny got up from his bed and, using the wall for support, gradually made his way to his window. He opened it up, and Vlad regained visibility. “Ready for your first flight?” he wondered, though his expression made it sound like asking was more of a formality.

“Definitely,” Danny responded, his heart beginning to beat faster in anticipation. 

Vlad drifted through the open window and landed on the floor. “Just remember, that it will take a lot of concentration at first to stay airborne,” he warned, “but flying is just as natural for ghosts as walking is for humans. The more you practice your flying, the faster it will become second nature, but do  _ not _ fly without me your first few times. We don’t want you falling out of the sky and getting hurt again.”

Danny nodded.

“Alright then,” Vlad sighed, though it was a sigh of preparation. “Go ahead and transform.”

Danny had been practicing his transformations and can now do it at a drop of a hat. No more need for concentrating and reaching inside of himself. Just a simple mental command, and the white transformation ring instantly appeared, splitting apart and changing him from human to ghost. He tried not to think of it as dying, but the thought still passed through his mind.

“Good,” Vlad praised. “Now, remember--” He stood a little straighter and put a hand to the center of his torso “--keep your core tense, and control your direction by leaning.”

At Danny’s nod of understanding, Vlad leaped out of the window and remained floating outside of it, waiting. Danny approached the window and stepped up onto the window sill. He looked down at the ground. It suddenly looked a lot further away than it was earlier in the day. 

“Don’t look down,” Vlad reminded. “Only look where you’re going.”

Danny nodded and took a quick, preparatory breath. He decided to jump before he could talk himself out of it. He was suddenly falling through the air, and he strained to remember all the lessons Vlad had taught him about floating. It was essentially the same thing, right? Just more life-threatening. He managed to slow himself down to a stop, making himself hover just over six feet above the ground. “That’s good, Danny,” Vlad’s voice called above him. Danny looked up towards him and smiled in thanks. “Now come back up here.”

Danny tilted his body upwards, concentrating on rising. It was slow and wobbly, but eventually, he managed to reach Vlad’s altitude. “Good,” Vlad congratulated.

“Hey, did you just call me 'Danny'?” the younger Half Ghost mockingly questioned.

Vlad smiled slightly and huffed a barely audible laugh before turning around. “You need to concentrate,  _ Daniel _ ,” he insisted.

Vlad started to fly slowly above the buildings of the city, and Danny followed. It was hard not to look down. He was always curious about how high he was and what was under him. He hadn’t seen much of this city since he left the hospital.

It was more difficult to maintain his balance in flight than he thought it would be. It was easy to learn how to stay balanced while floating in a stationary position, but moving was just different enough to throw him off. He felt like a little kid learning how to ride a bike without training wheels for the first time. Only this was much more fun than a bike.

“Hey!” he called, getting Vlad to look back at him. “How fast can we go?”

“I’m not going to tell you that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’ll just make you want to race, and like I said, I don’t want you getting hurt,” Vlad reasoned.

“Well, now I  _ really _ want to race,” Danny laughed, getting Vlad to laugh lightly with him.

“Not a chance.”

Danny smirked. “On your mark, get set, go!” He put his arms out and blasted forward as fast as he could go.

“Daniel!” Vlad shouted, taking off after him

Vlad was foolish to think that the boy would want to take it slow. Daniel wasn’t the type to do that. And now he could get hurt. 

Danny’s heart was racing but in a good way. The feeling of being weightless and above it all and the wind in his hair was exhilarating. His surroundings blended together into a large grey blur, but what was in front of him remained steady. It was the one patch of green in the city: the park. He spotted a small grove of trees and decided to stop there and wait for the old man to catch up.

But then Danny realized that he hadn't really figured out breaking yet.

He leaned back, straining to slow down, but he couldn’t do it in time. The tree branches were coming up fast, and he braced himself for impact.

Vlad had managed to grab Danny’s ankle, forcing him to a stop just before he collided with the tops of the trees. He looked down at the boy who had his eyes squeezed shut. “Daniel,” he began, “I thought we had agreed to take it slow so that you can learn how to break first.”

Danny cracked his eyes open and realized that Vlad was holding him by the ankle. He chuckled awkwardly. “Sorry.” He floated up so that he was horizontal in Vlad’s grip, and Vlad hesitantly let him go. “So...breaks?” he suggested.

* * *

The next morning, Maddie and Jack had gone to the store, leaving Jazz and Danny to sit at the breakfast table. “I had an idea last night, Danny,” Jazz spoke up.

Danny looked up at her from his emptied cereal bowl. “What idea?”

“I found a bunch of our old home video tapes late last night.” she explained. “I couldn’t get the idea out of my head until I found them for some reason. Would you want to watch them?”

Danny hardly even hesitated. “Of course.”

“Excellent,” the sister instantly exclaimed, swiftly taking the two bowls from the table and dropping them into the sink.

Danny got up from his chair with the aid of his crutches and followed Jazz to the living room. Jazz had knelt in front of the TV with an entire drawer that had been removed from a dresser on the floor next to her. It was packed as tightly as possible with VHS tapes in boxes. Each box had an aged white sticker on it and a label written out in black permanent marker. They were dates with names and words like “New Years 2004” and “Danny’s birthday 2000”.

“Go ahead and take a seat while I figure this out, Danny,” Jazz invited.

Danny took the invitation and sat down on the sofa. After a few minutes of Jazz messing with various remote controls, the TV screen changed to a blank, bright, blue, and Jazz muttered a triumphant “Yes!”  Jazz spun around on the floor to look at Danny. “What’re you feeling?” she asked. “Birthdays, Christmases, New Years?”

“Well my birthday’s coming up soon right?”

“Next month. April third,” Jazz reminded.

“So why not birthdays?”

Jazz nodded in approval. “Sounds good to me.”

She spun back around and shuffled through the drawer of VHS tapes, pulling each one out until she had a stack of 14 different tapes. She removed one tape from its box and slipped it into the player. She stood up and grabbed the remote off of the TV stand and came to join Danny on the sofa. 

The two of them spent that Sunday watching the tapes, eventually moving on to holidays. Even after their parents had returned from the store, the two siblings were still sitting on the sofa. They put away the groceries and decided to join them. Maddie sat on Danny’s other side on the sofa, and Jack sat next to them all on the cushioned chair off to the side--after he made popcorn for the whole family, of course. 

As time went on, Danny couldn’t deny how familiar it all was. With each passing tape, the feeling in his chest grew more and more intense. The best he could describe it was nostalgia, but there was much more emotion behind it. It made his heart ache and his eyes sting. He tried to hide it, but his mom silently handed him a tissue, and his dad slid the popcorn bowl across the table so that it was closer to him.

Eventually, while watching the tape of the most recent Christmas, his vision started to haze over. He blinked a few times in an attempt to get rid of it, but it only grew thicker. It was similar to what happened a week or two ago when he was with Sam and Tucker, but it was slower than before. Maybe it will go away.

Danny tried to focus on the tape that everyone was speaking in rhymes in for some reason, but it didn’t seem to matter. The redness that was coloring his vision grew thicker and thicker, and his head began to pound in that terrible way that made him see colors. He groaned and closed his eyes, putting a hand to his forehead. “Hey, Jazz?” he muttered, the action of speaking making his head hurt more.

“Are you okay?” Jazz’s voice wondered. She sounded worried, but there was a clear attempt to hide it.

“My head,” he whispered.

The next thing he knew, a bright light was being shined in his eyes. He jumped at the suddenness of the light and attempted to pull away, but something kept him in place.

“Can you hear me, Danny?” an unfamiliar voice urgently wondered.

“Mmhmm,” Danny muttered. 

The light disappeared, finally allowing him to see. He was on the floor of the living room, and there were red and white lights flashing outside. Over by the open doorway, his mom, dad, and sister were huddled together, staring at him with their eyes filled with fear. There were two men sitting with him in blue shirts and black pants, and there was a star-like patch on each of their shoulders. It was colored white with a red symbol stitched into it. 

“Can you tell us what happened, Danny?” the man in front of him requested.

Danny shook his head. “I’m not really sure. We were just watching old home videos when I got a really bad headache. Now this.”

The EMT nodded in consideration. “We’re just going to finish up checking your vitals here, and then we’re going to transfer you to the hospital for a more thorough exam, alright?”

“Okay.”

The EMT turned to his partner that had a blood pressure pump wrapped around Danny’s upper arm. “Can you take over while I go inform the parents?”

The partner nodded, and the EMT stood up from his kneeling position on the floor and went to go talk to Jack and Maddie. Danny concentrated a little and enhanced his hearing to hear what they were saying. “There doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with him,” the EMT explained. “All of his vitals check out so far, but considering that this is the second time he’s had a headache followed by a fainting spell, we’re going to take him to the hospital to get an MRI to make sure nothing is wrong, alright?”

Maddie nodded, her chest heaving like she was trying to hold back tears. 

* * *

Before Danny knew it, he was out of the suffocating and loud MRI chamber and in the waiting room with his family. It wasn’t long until the doctor came out and called for them. “Is there anything wrong, doctor?” Jack asked.

The doctor shook his head. “There is nothing out of the ordinary in his MRI and fMRI scans. There’s no cancerous or benign masses that could be causing this. My original recommendation that he see a psychiatrist still stands.”

“We have an appointment with one for next week,” Maddie said.

“That’s good, but considering that this is his second spell in just over three weeks, I recommend that you move up your time table if possible,” the doctor cautioned. “If you can’t, he should be heavily monitored, but there is no need for him to stay here.”

“I can watch him,” Jazz volunteered. “You guys don’t have to worry about anything.”

“But what about school, Jazzy Pants?” Jack reminded.

“I’m not blowing it off,” Jazz said. “My teachers are being pretty lenient with me by sending me all the work they can, and some even added voice recordings of their classes.”

“Well, that does make me feel a little better,” Maddie acknowledged. 

“Good,” Jazz finished. “It’ll be just like when we were little, Danny.” She playfully nudged his shoulders. “Just you and me.”


	17. Trial and Error

When Vlad wasn’t at work or teaching Daniel, he was only ever in his secret lab studying the samples he took from the castle and the scanned pages of the books that Tucker and Jasmine had forwarded to him. 

According to the history that was recorded in those pages, humans built the red castle. They built it to defend themselves against an enemy they were slowly learning more and more about: ghosts. It was during the days of Pariah Dark’s reign before he was locked in the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep. He had devastated the Ghost Zone and had turned his eyes on the human world, sending wave after wave of ghostly skeletons, and even The Fright Knight, to wear the humans down. The castle was built and used as a shelter for many humans; the reason that it was empty was to fit in as many people as possible. Then, years after Dark’s initial attack, after the scepter was prepared and tested on captured ghosts, Dark opened up a large portal, sucking up the entire building, it’s foundation, even the very dirt it stood on along with every human inside. 

With the humans trapped in the Ghost Zone, they had nowhere to go. The castle was made out of anti-ghost element Ectoranium, and that provided some degree of protection, but it wasn’t enough. The last entry in the diary-like history books was about the large stone ball in the center of the gazebo-like obelisk. It stated just what Vlad had theorized: that it’s only vulnerable when it was actively sucking in a ghost’s soul. It was made to destroy Pariah Dark. It was cut entirely out of an Ectoranium deposit that Vlad was certain had disappeared by now. After it was cut, it was covered in a layer of red stone that was described almost like it was cement. The outer layer was not only to protect the stone, but it was also to ensure that the stone wouldn’t outright reject the ghost’s soul. 

The ball was then enchanted by who they described as their “magic wielders”, but Vlad had gleamed through their description that they were only wielding anti-ghost natural elements such as Blood Blossoms. Due to those weilders' enchantments, that stone would always contain at least a drop of the energy from a ghost that it touched. Always.

The entries stopped there, but it cleared up almost everything. Vlad had studied the flames, smoke, and the stones. Like the entries stated, they were mainly made out of Ectoranium diluted by other stone mixtures. Ectoranium was quite rare, so Vlad suspected that these ancient people had obtained it via an asteroid that had crashed into Earth. They must have used all of it to build the castle, staff, orb, and obelisk and diluted it to make their limited supply stretch as far as it could go. 

The sample of the flames remained intact in the bottle that Vlad had kept it in, and that only partially surprised him. The flames have remained burning for who-knows-how-long considering that the history entries didn’t have a date attached to them, so what’s to stop it from burning in the bottle? It was nigh on impossible to diagnose what the flames were and what caused them to burn. Vlad was sure that if he could just get to the bottom of the fires in that dungeon, he would find the source. But his heated ghost core could only protect him so much. He couldn’t diagnose any chemical properties in the fire he had. Not even the color of the flame narrowed it down. 

The smoke was, for some bizarre reason, easier to figure out. It left behind the chemical residue that was similar to Blood Blossoms. So either Blood Blossoms were eternally burning at the bottom of those fires or some extinct species of the flower that has similar chemical properties. The residue was just similar enough to a Blood Blossom to cause pause. 

He had no idea how far back that this thing went, so it was clear that unless he could travel through time, there was know way that he could figure out how all of the samples worked together. Instead, he focused on the historic entries. He poured over them, analyzing every word straight down to the handwriting. It was written in Latin, so it was written before that language went conventionally extinct. Luckily, he had studied Latin. He mainly focused on the last few entries about the orb. Not its composition, but its function. The entries stated that it was designed to both contain a ghost’s soul and use it up. It was linked to the castle itself, using the ghosts it consumed as a power source to keep the building intact and partially give the red scepter its power. And in Vlad’s theory, it also used the ghost’s soul to fuel the fires in the chamber. There wasn’t much oxygen in the Ghost Zone--at least, not as much as there was on Earth. It was livable for humans, but it wasn’t enough to keep a fire of that size burning for all eternity. The initial fuel source that the ancient people used was, theoretically, the equivalent of tinder, and the ghost souls the equivalent of wood and oxygen. 

How many ghosts had they trapped in there to keep those fires burning for so long?

That grotesque bit of his theory might also solve Daniel’s memory problem. It was a risk and something straight out of a novel, but it was a chance. If the orb would forever contain a piece of the soul of each ghost it had touched, part of Danny’s soul must still be inside. It was possible that it would still try to take in the rest of Daniel’s soul, making it open up and be vulnerable. Daniel could blast it with a ghost ray. The orb might mistake the energy of the ray for the energy of Daniel himself and open up. Then, they could destroy the orb. The other option was to get Daniel close to the orb and make it open up by sensing Daniel’s presence. It was risky, but it would make the orb open and become vulnerable. 

* * *

“How are you coming on that translation, Tucker?” Sam wondered at lunch. 

Tucker held up his PDA proudly. “Just finished last night. Want to head over to Danny’s place and go over everything after school?”

Sam nodded. “I’ve been wanting to check up on him ever since Jazz texted us last night about what happened.”

“Yeah, me too. Meet up on the way there?”

After the last school bell had rang, Tucker and Sam rushed out of the classroom. “Hey!” Mister Lancer’s voice shouted. “No running in the halls!”

The two teenagers ignored the comment and continued running. They didn’t stop, running all the way to Fenton Works. They only stopped when they reached their friend’s door. They simultaneously leaned down and put their hands on their knees, heaving.  “I never,” Tucker gasped, “wanna run--” Another gasp. “--that far...again.”

Sam nodded. “Agreed.”

After another moment of catching their breaths, Sam wreaked up and rang the doorbell. After a beat, the door was answered by Missus Fenton. “Hey, there, kids,” she greeted. “Is school out already?”

Sam nodded. “Is it alright if we check on Danny?”

“Of course,” Danny’s mom permissed. “He’s just upstairs in Jazz’s room. She’s studying for a test.”

“Thanks, Missus Fenton,” Tucker breathed, still catching his breath.

The two teenagers slipped by Maddie and made their way up the stairs and eventually to Jazz's pink-lined room. They found Jazz sitting at her desk intently studying a book and taking notes, and Danny was sprawled on her bed reading a novel.

“I thought you didn’t like reading,” Tucker voiced, making the two siblings jump.

Danny sat up and smiled gently at the sight of his friends. “I might not have back then, but I find it kinda fun now.” He put a bookmark in between the pages to mark his place and closed the book. “What’re you guys doing here?”

“School let out, and we have something we need to talk about with Jazz,” Sam explained. 

“Talk about what?” Danny wondered.

“Is it about…” Jazz trailed off, glancing at Danny.

“You guys can talk about anything in front of me, you know,” Danny assured. “I won’t freak out.”

Sam slowly approached Danny. “It’s just that,” she carefully began, “every time we talk about what happened when you lost your memory or about anything from your past, you end up in the hospital.”

“It’s for your safety, dude,” Tucker added, walking further into Jazz’s room.

Danny groaned, dropping down onto the bed again. “I’m so sick of you guys,” he finally said. 

“What do you mean?” Jazz asked, turning around in her chair to face him. 

Danny sat back up. “I mean that not just you guys but everyone has been walking on eggshells around me.” Danny was trying to keep his voice under control, but despite his efforts, it’s volume was steadily rising. “I know there’s a lot I don’t remember, and I know that I’m kinda medically fragile right now, but I need someone to talk to me straight! Vlad’s the only one who’s done that so far, and even then he doesn’t talk to me about anything that’s happened! I want to know what happened, and I want to know why every time my head hurts, I literally see red! It seems like you guys and Vlad all have the answers, and I want. To. Know!”

The room was silent, everyone staring at Danny. Eventually, Tucker was the one who broke the silence. “Maybe if we keep it vague and back off and take a break when your head starts to hurt, it’ll be okay,” he suggested. 

Jazz nodded in agreement. “We don’t  _ want _ to hide things from you, Danny,” she assured. “We’re just afraid of causing another medical lapse.” 

“It was nothing against you, Danny,” Sam added. “We were just afraid.”

Danny nodded. “I get it. I do,” he assured. “I just want answers.”

“Okay. We’ll talk about it with you but the moment--the  _ moment _ \--your head starts hurting, you  _ need _ to tell us,” Sam ordered, looking at Danny pointedly.

“Got it,” he agreed, genuinely smiling. 

“Okay then,” Jazz sighed. “Let’s get started.”

Sam sat on the edge of the bed next to Danny, and Tucker sat on the floor, cross-legged at the foot of the bed. Jazz pushed her rolling chair out from under her desk and slid closer towards the group. “First off,” Jazz began, “I’ve tried to study the samples we took, but I don’t have much access to the lab. All of the stone samples seem to be made up of the same substance, but I don’t know what it is. The chemical sequence isn’t stored in any of my parent’s databases. The smoke, on the other hand, appears to be made of something similar to Blood Blossom.”

“What’s that?” Danny asked.

“It’s a red flower that looks a lot like a rose,” Jazz explained.

“If I remember correctly from my research on the Salem Witch Trials,” Sam added, “it was used as an ancient ghost repellent.”

Danny nodded in understanding.

“That’s all I’ve got,” Jazz sighed. “Sorry, but I’m a psychologist. Not a scientist.”

“It’s okay, Jazz. You did what you could,” Sam dismissed.

“Where did you get these samples?” Danny wondered.

Sam, Tucker, and Jazz glanced at each other before Sam explained, though she spoke slowly and cautiously. “We got them from a stone red castle in the Ghost Zone.”

“And that’s the place that is behind the portal doors in the basement,” Danny confirmed, receiving a nod from Sam. “Why are you studying those samples?” he continued.

“Well, we think that they could be linked to your memory loss,” Jazz said. “And we’re studying them to determine if we can reverse it.”

“What happened at the red castle?” Danny insisted.

“I think that can be explained with what I have to add here.” Tucker held up his PDA and activated it. He messed with it, hitting various buttons until he pulled up the translation of the pages. “While we were there--”

“Was it just you guys who were there or were my mom and dad there too?” Danny interrupted.

“Mom and Dad weren’t with us because they don’t know,” Jazz reminded, “but Vlad was with us, and he’s studying the same samples and pages that we are.”

Danny nodded again. “Sorry for interrupting, but I had to know,” he apologized, looking worriedly at Tucker.

His friend waved a dismissive hand. “It’s cool, man. Anyways, while we were there, we found this old forge that hadn’t been used in a while, and there was a bookshelf in there. Some of those books were instructions, but the rest of them were history books that were written like they were journals. They were written in Latin, so I used a program to translate them.

“It looks like centuries ago--there’s no date marked on any of the pages, so I don’t know exactly how long--but it looks like Pariah Dark--” He looked up at Danny. “--he’s a really powerful and ancient ghost that you actually battled last year and defeated.” Danny nodded in confirmation. “So what happened was that Pariah Dark was trying to conquer the Earth and sent wave after wave of skeleton ghosts from his army to wear them down. Eventually, the humans found a large deposit of what they called Ectoranium that they discovered was a ghost repellent and built the red castle over it. They mixed it with other materials to stretch it as far as they could. 

“The people sheltered everyone inside the castle, and they got to work creating the forge and the dungeon underneath the foundation. They created a staff, forging the red crystal ball out of the fires they lit with red flowers and their magic wielders enchanted. The staff was made to control ghosts.”

“Okay, stop!” Danny suddenly shouted. The rest of the group jumped and looked at him, finding him with a hand to his temple. “My head’s starting to hurt. It’s not bad, but still.”

“When did it start?” Jazz asked, sliding her chair closer to her brother.

“It started when Tucker explained Pariah Dark but got worse when he mentioned that red staff,” Danny explained. 

The group took a break, talking about anything that didn’t have to do with the past. Tucker told some lame jokes that made Danny laugh and Sam groan. After a while, Danny’s head stopped pounding, and Tucker looked down at his PDA, ready to continue reading. As Tucker opened his mouth to start again, a knock sounded at the window.

The group jumped again, looking towards the sound. Danny stood up from the bed and approached the window. “Vlad?” he wondered as he opened up the window. “What’re you doing here?”

Vlad glided through the window and morphed back into human form. He scanned the faces of the teenagers before speaking. “I have a theory, but first off, how much does he know?” he gestured to Danny.

It was Jazz who answered, standing up from her desk chair. “We didn’t talk about what happened in the castle dungeon out of fear for his headaches, but we were just discussing the translation of the books we found,” she explained.

“Have you read them?” Vlad wondered.

“I have, but I just started explaining the history to these guys,” Tucker responded as he got up from the floor.

“Daniel,” Vlad called. “Do you think it’s safe to discuss this considering what happens when you get headaches?”

“Yeah,” Danny confirmed. “We figured out that when I get a headache, we can just take a break until it calms down, and then we can continue.”

“Good.” Vlad turned to Tucker. “I suppose that you can continue. It’s best you know everything from the history before I can explain my theory.”

Everyone sat back down again, though Vlad remained standing, leaning up against the wall. Tucker continued explaining the synopsis of the history from the books, taking a break every now and then to let Danny’s headache subside. “That’s it,” Tucker said once he had finished, looking up at them all.

“Well, okay then,” Danny sighed. 

“So my theory is that the orb is only vulnerable when it opens up and takes in a ghost’s soul,” Vlad explains. “And since it says that the stone orb will always hold a part of any ghost that it comes into contact with, it’s possible that part of Daniel’ soul is still inside.”

“And that’s the reason I can’t remember anything?” Danny questioned.

“Partially,” Sam said. “We think that the one who used to hold the red staff--his name was Freakshow--we think that he ordered you to forget everything.”

“And since the staff and orb are connected, if part of your soul is still inside of the orb, you could still be following the order to forget,” Jazz added.

“So we would have to destroy the orb in order to release Danny’s soul and get his memory back?” Tucker confirmed.

Vlad nodded. “I believe that the orb will open and attempt to claim the rest of Daniel’s soul,” he continued. “If Daniel blasts the orb with a ghost ray, it might mistake the energy of the ray for the energy of his soul and open. Then we can destroy it.”

“What if that doesn’t work?” Jazz challenged. 

"And does Danny even remember how to use his ghost ray?" Tucker added.

Vlad sighed emptily, but Danny saw in his eyes a certain fear, and he didn’t know why. “If we get Danny close enough, it might open and attempt to take the remainder of his soul. While it’s in the process, we could destroy the stone.”

“Do you realize how dangerous that is!” Sam shouted. “He could die!”

“What’s going on up there?” a new voice faintly called. Jack.

“Nothing, Dad!” Jazz called back. “Tucker’s just playing a movie on his PDA.”

After a few seconds of silence, Tucker spoke up, his voice somewhat quieter than before. “What about resonance?”

“What resonance?” Vlad asked.

“First off, how does a ghost’s soul compare to their ghost energy?” Tucker questioned.

“Their powers are extensions of their soul,” Vlad explained. “Everyone has a soul, but ghosts have the ability to use theirs as a weapon.”

“Okay, so what if Danny uses his Ghostly Wail on the orb?” Tucker suggested.

“Then it’s possible that the two frequencies would resonate and shatter the stone,” Sam continued.

“Like an opera singer with a glass?” Jazz wondered.

Vlad hummed in consideration. “That could work. And I would rather try that than getting him closer to the orb.”

“So let me get this straight: you want me to use my what on a stone orb that I haven’t seen that might possibly give me a headache and put me in the hospital again because it’s related to my past?” Danny questioned.

Tucker nodded and shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“And I’m using what to shatter the stone?”


	18. Practice

“Your Ghostly Wail,” Plasmius stated later that night. “It’s one of your ghost powers. One that I do not have, so I cannot demonstrate it to you.”

“But you’ve got us all here with you.” Sam gestured to their group standing in the darkened park. Jazz and Tucker both smiled at him encouragingly. 

“How does it work?” Danny asked, looking to Vlad.

“Well, none of us were there when you got your Wail, but it’s basically a supersonic scream,” Tucker explained.

“You don’t use it very often, though because it drains you so much you usually revert back into human form the instant you stop,” Sam added. 

Danny had stopped looking towards the silent Vlad. Sam, Tucker, and Jazz clearly knew more about the power than he did. “How did I get the power?” 

“We’re not exactly sure,” Jazz said. “But it activated during a moment of extreme emotional stress, that you didn’t tell us much about.”

“Emotions have a way of directing our powers without our permission sometimes. That’s why we need to keep a tight handle on ourselves during stressful times.” Vlad explained. “It could trigger the development of a new power, but it could also cause you to use more energy than needed, which could drain you until you revert back into human form, leaving you highly vulnerable. If the trigger for the power was heightened emotions, you’re going to have to remember times where you were highly stressed to activate the power at first, but you will also need to use other memories and emotions to help direct the energy from the blast and keep it under control. That way you won’t revert back into human form when you no longer need to use it.”

Danny nodded, taking in Vlad’s words. “When do we go to the Ghost Zone and that red castle?” he wondered. “I want to remember.”

“After you learn how to activate and _control_ your Wail,” Vlad said. “You won’t have to master it, but at least learn to stay in ghost form after you use the power.”

“You can do it, Danny. We believe in you,” Jazz encouraged.

“Yeah, dude. You’ve done it before, so you can do it again,” Tucker added.

Danny faced a tree, glancing up at the top of it, silhouetted against the starry sky. Could he really fell this entire tree with one scream?

Danny felt more than heard Vlad’s approach behind him. Vlad stood there, waiting. “Will it be the same as normal?” Danny wondered. “Reach down inside and bring it out?”

“Yes,” Vlad assured. “Though this is obviously different than flying or turning invisible. You have to direct the energy up and into your vocal cords when you bring it out. But if it’s all the same to you, I’m going to take a few steps backwards. This is quite a powerful blast, after all.”

Danny could hear the smile in his words, and then Vlad’s footsteps as he backed away. Danny let out a preparatory breath. “Okay,” he sighed, closing his eyes and repeating the process of reaching down into his power.

Feeling the power writhing inside of him like he had just stuck his hand into an angry ocean, he grabbed hold of it. He imagined the same thing as before, pulling it up like he was saving someone from jumping off a cliff. Something swelled in side of his chest. It seemed to crush his lungs, and made it hard to breathe. He pictured the power moving upwards, and the second he did, it happened. The power swiftly moved from his chest and into his throat. He almost choked on it. It strangely reminded him of something. A tall, pale man with a hand around his throat. 

His eyes snapped open, his heart suddenly racing. The power in his throat then burst out, forcing him to scream. The scream tore out of his mouth, ripping both his mouth and his throat raw. Large, green rings of ecto energy traveled out of him, bombarding the tree he was facing. It quickly fell, along with the next and the next. 

Danny couldn’t control his heart. He could feel something. The memory of pain, and it was making him panic.

“Daniel!” Vlad’s voice called, though Danny could barely hear it. “Control it! They’re  _ your _ powers! They do what  _ you _ want them to!”

Danny squeezed his eyes shut again, remembering Vlad’s previous words. Think of something to calm him down to control the power. He thought of Jazz and his parents last night watching home movies on the couch. Not much happened, but he could fell how much they cared for him then. 

The deafening roar and green ecto energy rings coming from Danny suddenly stopped, leaving Danny void of energy. Danny dropped down to the ground, instantly reverting back into human form. 

“Danny!” several voices called.

The boy was dazed, and colors were running together as if he was flying too fast. With the four faces surrounding him, the image seemed vaguely familiar, but he didn’t know why. 

Danny blinked, straining to settle his eyesight. Eventually, he accomplished that goal, clearly seeing Jazz, Tucker, Sam, and Vlad standing over him. “Woah,” he muttered.

Over the next several nights, Danny, his friends, and Vlad traveled to remote locations, allowing Danny to practice his Ghostly Wail. He couldn’t practice much since releasing such power all at once was so draining, but as time went on, Danny noticed that he was recovering quicker and quicker. He still couldn’t stay in ghost form, but he could transform back almost instantly.

“Come on, guys,” he pleaded, changing back into ghost form after releasing another Wail. “Let’s go to the red castle now.”

“No,” Vlad denied. “It’s too dangerous for you, right now.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree,” Sam added. 

“And if you go there, you might pass out from your memories trying to come back,” Jazz reminded.

Danny groaned. “I’ve been practicing bringing my energy out and containing it. I can even make a ball of ecto energy and even hold it in human form, now. I can handle this,” he assured. “I want to remember, and unless we train for months more, I don’t think I’m going to get any better than this. And I don’t want to wait months.”

Tucker finally spoke up. “I think he’s right.” Vlad, Sam, and Jazz all looked at him incredulously. “For all we know, part of his soul being in that stone orb could be preventing him from unleashing his full power. And the longer we wait, the more attacks he might have, and who knows. One of those attacks might land him in a coma or worse. I think it’s too much of a risk to wait.”

Sam nodded in consideration. “There are a lot of unknown factors.”

It took a while, but eventually Tucker and Danny wore down the reluctant Sam, Vlad, and Jazz. Vlad sighed. “If I’m not able to stop you from going, I’m going to come with you,” he agreed. “We’ll go tomorrow evening.”

* * *

“Any change?” Walker demanded as one of his sargents marched into his office. 

“None, sir. No one has entered the castle since those three teenagers and Vlad Plasmius left two weeks ago, sir,” he responded.

Walker smirked with satisfaction. “Good. Then let’s go inside and investigate. Hopefully there’s still something left of the place that we can use on that Phantom punk.”


	19. Here Goes Everything

Danny, Sam, Tucker, and Jazz all had their ears pressed against the outside wall of Maddie and Jack’s bedroom. They could hear them whispering about them. They supposed it was the normal things that parents talked about alone: their children’s well-being. That mostly seemed to be about their grades at school. Sam and Tucker were there under the guise of a study group to help catch Danny up with the rest of their grade, and they pretended to fall asleep in Danny’s room. They overheard both Maddie and Jack call their parents and explain that their study group had turned into an unplanned sleepover, and they were currently listening in on them to see when they fell asleep. Then they could easily take the Specter Speeder into the Ghost Zone without them knowing, but it seemed to be taking forever.

“Shh,” a gentle voice whispered, catching their attention. They watched as Vlad Plasmius regained visibility.

“How are we getting past them?” Danny muttered.

Vlad held up a small jar. “I put sleep spores in their water glasses. And don’t worry. It’s completely harmless,” he added at the sight of the group’s surprised and somewhat afraid looks. “It will just assure that they’ll fall and stay asleep. Shouldn’t be too long now.”

As if on cue, gentle snoring could be heard through the wall. And just to double check, Danny turned his head intangible and stuck it through the wall. He found his parents deeply asleep on their bed. He pulled his head back out from the wall, and nodded to his friends and sister. “They’re out like a light.”

Tucker narrowed his eyes, looking more determined than Danny had ever seen him. “Then let’s get going.”

* * *

It wasn’t long until the five of them were approaching the red castle floating in the ghost zone. Danny couldn’t stop looking around in amazement. The green Ghost Zone was more vast than he thought it would be, and the energy novas gave the illusion that they were flying through space. The ghost energy within him swelled when they entered the Zone, and he couldn’t help but morph into his ghost form. But the sight of the lone red castle completely froze all that he felt. There was a pressure forming steadily in his head, and he knew from experience that it was the beginning of a new headache. But he grit his teeth and shoved the pain to the back of his mind, focusing on the task at hand.

“Let’s go,” Vlad ordered, phasing through the floor of the Speeder.

Tucker opened up the back of the vehicle, and him, Sam, and Jazz got up from their seats. Danny followed Vlad through the floor as his friends and sister dropped out of the back of the Speeder. Tucker closed the doors and locked it up. The three of them floated up to Danny and Vlad, awkwardly swimming through the air. 

The group wordlessly glided the rest of the way to the red castle and inside, entering the empty main chamber. “Wow,” Danny scoffed. “You weren’t kidding when you said this place was empty.”

“Shh!” Vlad muttered harshly. “I think there are people here.”

Danny concentrated to enhance his hearing as Tucker, Sam, and Jazz quieted. There was someone here. There was a voice coming from down below. He couldn’t make out anything they were saying, but the voice was deep and had some sort of accent, but the voice was too faint to identify it. 

“Daniel,” Vlad quietly called. “Turn invisible and stay with me. The rest of you follow from behind. Move as silently as possible.”

Danny nodded and turned himself invisible as Vlad did the same. He took a few steps forward, sensing where Vlad was. The group descended the stairs, the three full humans moving as silently as they could with their ecto weapons. At the bottom of the stairs, a curved, stone doorway greeted them along with almost blinding bright orange firelight. 

Danny squinted against it, straining to see what was in the room. What he found was a thin stone bridge and some sort of carved gazebo that had a large rock ball in the center of it and a stone wall at the back. And there were people there. Ghosts. There were maybe fifteen or twenty ghosts in what looked like police body armor, complete with batons. They had green skin and a long green tail where their legs should be. In the gazebo--obelisk was what Tucker called it from the translated papers, right?--standing in front of the stone orb was a tall, paper white ghost in a casual work suit that was just as white as his skin, and now that his voice was clear, Danny could finally identify his accent as southern.

“What’re they doing here?” Sam quietly growled behind him.

“I thought they ran off,” Jazz added.

“They must be looking for a way to still use this stuff,” Tucker suggested.

“The books were untouched, sir!” an unfamiliar voice shouted from behind them.

Danny jumped and turned around, temporarily forgetting that he was invisible. But then his panic renewed when he realized that his friends and sister weren't. 

The armored ghost floated down the stairs, his hand cupping his mouth to amplify his voice. The second his glowing red eyes landed on Tucker, Sam, and Jazz, he froze. “Intruders!” he bellowed, charging at them.

Danny didn’t even think or stop to process what he was doing with his powers. He just put his hand out, pleading that he would be able to save his friends and sister. His invisibility dropped without his permission as a bright green ray exploded out of his hand, striking the armored ghost in the chest. 

“Daniel!” Vlad gasped next to him. “Regain invisibility at once.”

Sam raised her gun as the ghost that Danny had struck stumbled backwards. She fired to keep him off balance as Jazz brought up her Fenton Thermos. She activated it and sucked the ghost inside.

“Danny Phantom,” the same southern voice that was shouting orders before greeted, though there was a note of mocking surprise contained in it. Danny turned towards the white ghost as Vlad regained visibility and the ghost continued. “I know you might not remember me, but my name is Walker. The warden around these parts.”

“You mean, the Ghost Zone has a law system? Seems a bit too chaotic,” Danny pointed out. “You might want to do a bit more policing.”

Walker scoffed. “Well, a certain someone is the one who threw this ordered Zone into chaos.” He gritted his teeth and growled with threat, “Get them. Bring Phantom here alive.”

The armored ghosts launched themselves towards them, and Vlad shouted an order at the top of his lungs. “Get out of the bottleneck!”

The group separated. Vlad and Danny took to the air, and those who were human in the group split: Sam and Tucker to the right and Jazz to the left. They skirted the ghosts, blasting at them as they rushed through the now open doorway. Danny didn’t know how he managed to create that blast earlier, but he called upon the same emotions and put his hand out. Another green ray launched from his hand as the ghosts finally registered that the group had separated. 

Some of the ghosts darted upwards towards Vlad and Danny while others went to the sides, forcing the three friends into another bottleneck on the narrow stone bridge. As the ghosts came up towards Danny, he couldn’t concentrate enough to form another blast. They were coming at him too fast. He had to resort to throwing punches just to keep them at bay. It wasn’t long before he noticed that he had gotten separated from Vlad. Something grabbed him from behind and wrapped around him. It was a pair of arms, and they were holding a steel baton in front of him, pinning him in place.

Danny instinctively bucked, almost like he was a horse attempting to throw his rider. As he repeatedly tried to dislodge the ghost’s hold he remembered what it felt like when he first transformed in that hospital room. That surge of energy. He was already transformed, but he brought forth that energy once more, forcing more of it to the surface. His hands glowed green, and that hue was quickly spreading to the rest of his body. Danny suppressed his panic and let the energy build until his entire body was glowing a bright, almost lime green. He thrust the energy outwards, delivering a wide ring of ectoplasmic power to every ghost nearby. 

The ghosts were forced away and didn’t move after Danny’s blast. Then all of the ghosts were suddenly caught in a white ray and dragged away. Jazz sealed the thermos again, and she raised her weapon, preparing to fire again, but a ghost came up behind her with his baton raised. “No!” Danny exclaimed and rushed forward. 

Something hot struck him in the back, and he cried out in pain. With the break in his concentration, he couldn’t remain afloat and crashed hard down onto the stone bridge. A large hand grabbed his hair, yanking him upwards. 

“Daniel!” Vlad called.

As the hand yanked more and more on Danny’s hair as it pulled him up and off the ground, he finally saw the face of who had him: Walker. He also watched as Vlad charged towards them both. A war cry reached his ears, and he glanced towards it as best as he could, finding Sam running at them along the bridge, her gun raised. Pink and green rays bombarded Walker, but after a brief moment, he raised a hand. His hand glowed purple, and he swiped his hand in a large arc, sending out a wave of violet energy. The wave struck Sam in the chest and Vlad in the stomach, forcing them both rapidly away. Sam and Vlad slammed their backs into the wall. Sam cried out in pain and slid to the floor by the entrance of the chamber. Vlad slid down below the flames, and neither of them got back up.

“No!” Danny shouted again, struggling in Walker’s grasp.

Danny kicked out and grabbed at Walker’s hand in his hair. Walker suddenly sent a painful current of ecto energy coursing through Danny’s body, making him cry out. He struggled to maintain consciousness, but he did manage to.

“Oh, quit your whining,” Walker scolded, dragging Danny backwards.

The heels of Danny’s boots scrapped against the dirty stone, leaving thin trails in the dust. Walker raised Danny upwards and launched him. Danny’s back was slammed into a stone wall, forcing all of the air from his lungs. Danny slid to the floor, coughing vigorously as he strained to get his air back.

“Now we don’t have to wait and see if we can still affect you. We can just experiment on you here,” Walker announced. 

Danny finally managed to stop coughing and looked up at Walker through his blurred vision. A large, red, stone ball was blocking most of his line of sight. Danny braced himself against the wall behind him and got unsteadily to his feet. 

“And if you refuse to cooperate…” Walker trailed off, gesturing behind him.

Danny looked towards that direction and found three of the ghosts in body armor supporting an unconscious Sam, and holding a struggling Tucker and Jazz. They had knives to all three of their throats. 

* * *

When Vlad’s back struck the stone wall, all of the air had instantly gone out of his lungs. Walker’s blast was so disruptive that he couldn’t maintain his altitude and slid down the wall. He flipped himself around and used all of his strength to force his fingertips past the stone. He dug into the wall as he slid further and further down. His hands burned as the rock crumbled away beneath the tips of his fingers. He braced his feet against the wall, straining to slow his momentum. The air around him got hotter and hotter, and the properties of his heated ghost core naturally activated, shielding him from the heat. 

Eventually, he managed to grind to a stop, the flames licking at the edge of his cape. He glanced down, the fires blinding him with their heat and light. He couldn’t tell how much further down it was or what was at the bottom causing the fires to burn. 

He took a moment, clinging to the wall as he assessed the situation. He concentrated, enhancing his hearing more than it already was in an attempt to hear what was going on above, but he couldn’t hear anything over the roar of the flames around him. They were so hot, that even he--with his heated ghost core--was starting to sweat. 

Vlad removed his fingers from the wall, turned invisible and steadily glided upwards. Once he could see over the tips of the flames, he found Jasmine and Daniel’s two friends being held down by three of Walker’s goons and guarded by more, blades held threateningly at the three teens’ throats. But Daniel. He was unsteadily leaning against the wall of the obelisk. He had to get away from there.

“You wouldn’t,” Danny said. “You’re a policeman. Wouldn’t taking another’s life in threat count as murder?”

“My laws don’t apply to humans, Ghost Kid,” Walker reminded. 

Danny looked up at Walker, a challenge in his eyes. He could sense how dangerous this situation was, and he didn’t know how to get out of it. He needed to see just how far this Walker guy was willing to go.

“Don’t try me,” Walker growled. 

The white ghost turned his head back towards his guards and sharply waved one forward. The ghost that was holding Tucker stowed his knife, shoved the teenager forward onto the narrow bridge. He used his baton and whacked at the back of Tucker’s knees. Tucker yelled in pain as he dropped into a kneeling position. The ghost swat Tucker on the back of his head with his baton, knocking off the boy’s red beret. Tucker fell forward onto his stomach as his beret was sent straight down into the fires below. Tucker screamed again as the ghost grabbed his hair and pulled his head upwards, exposing his throat. 

“No,” Danny breathed. Hardly believing what he was seeing. He had only met Tucker, what? About a month ago? But he couldn’t lose him. He was his friend.

The ghost brought his knife back out again pressing it into Tucker’s throat.

“Stop it,” Danny ordered, looking pointedly at Walker. “Call him off.” He stood up a little straighter. “Now.”

Walker looked back at Danny and smirked. “I’m going to prove a point to you, Ghost Kid,” he spat. “You’re in the Ghost Zone, and you’re a ghost. You’ve committed enough infractions against the law to be sentenced to destruction, and I’m going to make it as slow as possible."

The white ghost turned back to the ghost holding Tucker down and nodded. 

Danny didn’t even register that he was screaming. He just opened his mouth and screamed.


	20. Danny

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Perspective change for this chapter. It changes from 3rd person to 1st person from Danny's perspective. Just didn't want anyone to be confused.

The chilly shiver ran up my spine and released itself in a fine blue mist that came from my mouth. I groaned and took my Thermos out of my pocket.

“Want us to come with you, Danny?” Sam wondered.

“Nah,” I shrugged. “It doesn’t feel all that powerful. I should be able to take care of it quickly. Nothing to worry about.”

“Okay. Well, only if you’re sure,” Tucker spoke up.

“I’m sure,” I answered, turning down a darkened alley and transforming. “We’ve been fighting ghosts all weekend, anyways. You guys deserve a break.”

“Yeah, and so do you,” Sam countered.

“Which I will take after I suck this ghost into the Thermos.” I floated off the ground and took off into the sky before either of them could protest. Seriously, this ghost would be a piece of cake. There’s no reason to get them involved in this. 

It didn’t take long for me to spot it. It was a simple blob ghost that was making a lazy, meandering path through the sky. I readied the Thermos and glided towards it. I activated the containment device. The ghost was easily sucked inside, and I re-secured the lid of the Thermos and slipped it into the pocket of my jumpsuit. “Like I said. Piece of cake.”

“Oh, I’m sure it was,” a familiar voice said.

* * *

I opened the door to my house, being greeted by Sam, Tucker and Jazz. “Where’ve you been?” Jazz demanded.

“Yeah, dude,” Tucker agreed. “You’ve been gone all day.”

“You said it was just one ghost. What happened?” Sam questioned.

I barely had the time to close the door before they started asking me all of those questions. And I had to fire back with one of my own. “What’d you mean ‘been gone all day’? It’s only, like, four o’ clock.”

“Danny, it’s almost midnight,” Sam pointed out, her voice bordering on a yell.

“I told mom and dad that you were studying at the library so that they wouldn’t freak out,” Jazz explained, her voice worried.

“Just tell us what happened,” Tucker requested.

I jumped when Sam told me the time. I glanced at my watch and found that she was right. 11:50, it read. I shrugged it off. “Must’ve just lost track of time flying,” I suggested.

“For eight hours?” Sam demanded. 

“We know you like you flying, dude, but you’ve never gone that long before,” Tucker added.

I tried to think back on it, but the last thing I remembered was sucking the ghost into the Thermos. And there was something else that happened afterwards, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I know that I should be concerned about it, but I wasn’t. There wasn’t a particular reason I wasn’t worried, but that should be a good thing, right? 

I shrugged again. “I don’t think anything in particular happened. I just lost track of time.” I slipped in between Jazz and Tucker and headed towards the stairs. “I’m not worried about it, so you shouldn’t be either.”

I glanced back at them as I walked up the stairs. The three were huddled together, whispering about something that even my sensitive hearing couldn’t pick up. I left them behind and entered my room, closing the door behind me. 

I dropped onto my bed, suddenly exhausted. What _had_ happened? I might not be worried about it, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t curious. Missing memory wasn’t exactly a good thing.

I groaned and rolled over, pulling my covers over my head. I’d deal with it tomorrow. I was too tired to think.

* * *

I knew I should be worried, but something was stopping me. After school ended each day, my memory went missing, and I couldn’t tell what the cause of it was. I suppose the reason I wasn’t worried was because of how much calmer I felt. It allowed me to focus more on tests during class because I wasn’t worried about failing. Both my parents and Mister Lancer congratulated me on my rising grades over the past few weeks. Sam and Tucker continually voiced their concerns over my disappearances, but I always brushed them off until they stopped asking. I couldn’t remember anything worrisome, so why bother? But they always said that that was the reason they were freaking out: I couldn’t remember. And they were worried that I wasn’t worried.

They dragged me home and over to Jazz one day, demanding her opinion. She sighed. “I’m not sure what to think. Whatever is happening seems to be good for him,” she said. “His grades are going up, and he seems to be a lot happier than he was a few weeks ago.”

“See?” I taunted. “I’m a lot calmer now, and my grades are better. There’s nothing to be afraid of. And have you even seen a dangerous ghost recently?”

“Only dumb little blob ghosts or low level ghosts like those octopi,” Tucker pointed out.

“So there’s nothing to worry about,” I reminded, a sudden wave of sleepiness making me yawn. “I think I’m gonna go take a nap before a ghost pops up.”

“Did you finish your homework?” Jazz asked.

“I did it during lunch,” I answered as I reached the stairs.

“Did he?” Jazz questioned, turning towards Sam and Tucker.

“Actually, he did,” Sam said.

That was the last thing I heard before closing my door and dropping into bed. Why was I so tired? I didn’t even fight any difficult ghosts today. But I still couldn’t deny that I wanted to sleep even before dinner.

Something red glinted in my vision, and I glanced towards it, only finding the sun setting through the buildings. 

I had to go outside. I didn’t know why, just that I did. Maybe it was my ghost sense? Either way.

I stood and morphed into my ghost form, walking towards the window. I phased through it gliding through the reddened air. I couldn’t see properly for some reason. The sunset seemed to be brighter than normal.

After a while of flying, I still didn’t know where I was going or why I was outside, but eventually, someone called for me with a laugh in his voice. “Looks like Freakshow was actually right.”


	21. After a Scream

Walker was thrown instantly away, his back slamming into the wall by the entrance. The ghost holding Tucker released him as he, too, was blasted away. Jazz took the opportunity and forced herself backwards into the guard. Her sudden action threw him off balance, and made him release her. Jazz dug the thermos out of her pocket and opened it up, instantly sucking in the ghost. She didn’t waste any time and took aim at the rest of the guards. She didn’t get them all. Some of them managed to fly away, but most of them were sucked inside the thermos, including Walker and the ghost that was supporting Sam. 

The unconscious girl dropped onto the ground without the ghost to support her. Tucker got to his feet, turned around and ran forward, picking Sam up off of the ground. “You okay?” Jazz demanded.

Tucker nodded. “I’m more concerned with the fact that Danny might bring the whole place down.”

The two glanced around them. The entire chamber was cracking. They looked towards Danny, unsure of how to force their way past the powerful, green waves of energy coming from him.

All at once, the stone obelisk cracked, crumbled, and was blown apart. Debris flew towards them, and Jazz instinctively screamed in her panic, squeezing her eyes shut. But no boulders impacted them. She finally looked up, finding that they had been encased in a pink dome. Vlad was floating above them, his hand extended in their direction. Once the debris from the obelisk stopped raining down, he released the dome and landed on the ground near them. “The anti-ecto walls of the chamber are reflecting Danny’s scream back inwards, amplifying it,” he quickly explained. 

“We have to stop him, or he's going to kill us all,” Tucker pointed out, his voice high and squeaky due to his panic.

“But he has to destroy the orb, doesn’t he?” Jazz reminded.

“Get back to the Speeder and get Samantha to safety,” Vlad ordered. “I’ll get Danny.”

“I’m not leaving him,” Jazz protested, taking a step forward.

Vlad rounded on her. “Yes, you are. Or do you want Maddie to lose two children today?”

Jazz’s eyebrows drew together. Vlad was right. However hard this was for her, she had to trust that Vlad would get Danny. Otherwise, her mom and dad would lose them both at once and never know why.

Jazz took one of Sam’s arms and draped it over her shoulders, helping Tucker support their friend. The three raced as fast as they could up the stairs.


	22. Danny

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 4th, y'all! Don't forget to leave milk and cookies out for Captain America tonight!

I turned around and found Walker floating behind me. Why didn’t I sense his approach? He’s a ghost. My ghost sense should have gone off. “Walker,” I growled. “What’re you doing here?”

He chuckled darkly. “That staff really must work like a dream. We’ve had this conversation more times than I’ve bothered to keep track of.” 

My eyebrows drew together in confusion. “Freakshow?” I wondered. “Did you bust him out of prison?”

“Actually,” Walker pointed behind me, “she did.”

I rushed to turn around only to be hit in the stomach by a green ectoblast. I cried out in pain as the fiery green ball threw me into the side of a building, leaving me stuck inside the wall. A green-skinned ghost in a cloak with spikes on her head and millions of tattoos floated before me. I instantly recognized her. I couldn’t remember her name, but she was from Freakshow’s circus, and she was very powerful.

I fisted my hand to ready an ectoblast, but the ghost’s tattoos lifted off of her skin and flew towards me, wrapping around my torso and binding my hands to my sides. She used her ghostly tattoos to drag me out of the wall and force me down to the ground, the air instantly leaving my lungs at the impact. I struggled against the binds, but they were as impenetrable as my dad’s ghost shield.

“There’s no use in struggling, little Ghost Boy,” another voice taunted, a voice that froze me in place the instant I heard it.

“Freakshow,” I muttered.

The second I said his name, the few remaining tattoos on the female ghost’s body lifted off of her skin and wrapped themselves around my mouth, choking me.

“Thank you, Lydia,” Freakshow said, walking into my field of view. His red staff was in his hand, and the instant I saw it, I closed my eyes. I was  _ not _ going through that again.

A chuckle reached my ears. I wasn’t sure who it belonged to, but Freakshow was the one who spoke next. “Every time.” 

There was a moment of silence, but there was a strange feeling inside of me. The same sleepiness from earlier was growing stronger, but this was not a time to fall asleep.

I sensed Freakshow’s presence come a little closer and get down on my level. “Open your eyes,” he ordered.

Everything in me refused to, but that didn't seem to matter. I opened my eyes. I looked straight towards the sky, straining to look anywhere but the red staff. Walker glided behind me, grabbing the sides of my head. I shook my head from side to side, fighting him. But the binds around me began to squeeze me tighter and tighter. Spots in my vision formed, and I quickly grew too weak to fight Walker. He forced me to look straight into the red crystal that adorned the top of the staff. 

The red in my vision must not have been from the sunset. The familiar red mist started to fill my eyesight, and Freakshow stood again. "Sleep."


	23. A Bit of Rescue

Vlad turned back to face Danny as the three teenagers reluctantly left the camber. The boy wouldn’t stop screaming. The walls were cracking and crumbling, debris and boulders dropping into the fires and slamming down onto the thin bridge, cracking it, along with the walls. 

Vlad marched forward, fighting the powerful energy coming from Daniel that was continually forcing him back. “Daniel!” he shouted, his throat stinging with how loud he had to shout. “Control it! You have to stop!”

It didn’t look like Daniel heard him. He continued to scream, the green ecto rings of power flowing from his voice growing thicker and brighter.  The flames below flared and wavered as if they were writhing in pain. The ceiling cracked loudly, and a large boulder was dislodged, falling down towards Vlad. He dove forward, dodging it. The rock crashed onto the bridge and shattered, the newly-formed pebbles spilling over the edges of it. The bridge couldn’t take the sudden weight and snapped, a large piece in the center dropping down into the fires and disappearing. 

Plasmius turned back towards Danny. The stone orb of the obelisk suddenly cracked like someone had taken a knife to it. Just a little bit further and Danny would shatter the orb, releasing the rest of his soul and getting his memory back. But it didn’t seem like the chamber would be able to hold together that long. 

Vlad took step after step towards Daniel. It was clear that he couldn’t control it. The only chance the boy had was for Vlad to protect the boy when the castle finally collapsed. A sudden, stabbing pain from his core made him cry out and drop to one knee. Daniel’s scream must be draining the ecto energy from him. He had to get out of its direct path. 

Vlad dragged himself forward, ducking down out of the main path. It was still a struggle to move, but eventually, he made it to where the obelisk used to stand and rolled off to the side, backing up closer to Danny. The pressure on his core lessened, and he watched the orb intently. It cracked more and more as if Daniel was repeatedly stabbing it. The red coating crumbled away bit by bit, gradually revealing the bright green and glowing Ectoranium. Just a little more.

All at once, the Ectoranium cracked, and then it exploded, sending out a massive wave of energy that pressed Vlad further into the wall. The energy burned him as if he was dipped in acid. He lost hold on his ghost form, the black rings changing him into his human form as he dropped to the floor. Vlad looked over at Daniel, finding him on the ground, human and apparently unconscious. 

The deafening sounds of destruction grew impossibly loud. Vlad glanced up at the ceiling and barely had time to process that the entire place was collapsing in on itself like a dying star about to explode before his instinct took over. He dove on top of Danny, raising a protective dome of ecto energy around them. He flinched with every impact. There seemed to be no end to the collapse. The light gradually disappeared, sealing them away. Vlad could barely see Daniel’s unconscious face in the light from the glowing, pink dome that surrounded them. He didn’t know how long they waited there, and part of him didn’t think that they would make it out alive.


	24. Danny

"Wake," a voice commanded.

It took me a moment to recognize the voice as Freakshow's. I was groggy, and I couldn't think straight. Eventually, my senses came into focus, and I managed to open my eyes. There was something hard strapping my ankles and wrists to something much harder. I glanced around and found that there were stone shackles around each of my limbs, strapping me to a large stone wall. I was in a red room made of red rock and filled with fire. I looked to be inside of a stone gazebo, and there was a large, red, rock ball in front of me, and t he smoke coming off of the fires smelled strange. It didn't smell like regular smoke. It had an odd sort of sweet scent to it. It was enjoyable. Almost like lavender or something. But no matter how pleasant it smelled, I knew it was dangerous. Freakshow’s power was always pleasant while you were in it.

"It took him long enough to wake up," another voice said. It belonged to Walker.

"It's this place," Freakshow explained, the two of them coming into view. "No ghost can maintain themselves here."

The red staff in Freakshow's hand instantly caught my attention. I shook my head and looked away from it. I might not know where I am, but I did know what that staff was capable of. I was not going to let him control me without a fight.

An impact sounded and something hard wrapped itself around my forehead, straightening my gaze, but I didn't dare open my eyes. 

“Oh, please, Phantom,” Walker’s voice mocked. “I think we’ve already established that we can force you to do what we want.”

What’s going on? One minute, I was screaming at Walker to stop, and the next...I...I think I’m remembering. 

The memories of that red chamber and Walker and Freakshow were spotty, but they were coming, one after the other. And it wasn’t just what happened with them. It was everything all at once. It was so overwhelming. I could distantly tell that I was unconscious, but my heart was beating faster and faster as more and more memories flew at me. When Vlad first introduced me to my power, all I had to do was prompt it, and the power sprang forward on its own. It was natural as long as I didn’t try to force it. I made myself take a deep breath and let it out slowly, allowing the memories to come and not trying to wrangle their flow under control.


	25. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter, guys! Thanks to all those who read and commented!

Jazz and Tucker managed to kick their way through the green Ghost Zone air and get to the Specter Speeder. Jazz tightened her hold on Sam and nodded to Tucker. The boy released his hold on Sam and took the Speeder’s keys out of his pocket, unlocking the speeder. He waved Jazz forward, and she kicked towards him. Tucker got into the Speeder and took hold of Sam again. The two awkwardly dragged their unconscious friend inside and buckled her in. Jazz closed the doors, and Tucker raced to the front seat. He started up the Speeder and prepared to activate the shields to protect them but froze at the sight of it. 

It was like a black hole had opened up right in the center of the castle causing the entire thing to collapse in on itself. The roof caved in, and the walls buckled inwards.

“What’re you waiting for, Tucker?” Jazz shouted, marching up to him. “Activate the--” She finally saw what Tucker was staring at. After a moment of staring, Jazz shook her head to get herself to focus and slammed her hand down on the button that activated the shields.

As the rest of the castle imploded, debris pelted the green shield. The two teens flinched with each hit. Tucker glanced back towards Sam. As the Speeder rocked from side to side, her head was sliding from one direction to another where it hung.

Jazz didn’t know how long it took, but eventually, the hammering debris ended. The castle was gone. The pile of rubble that remained looked like a complicated, disassembled Lego set. Several bricks were gliding downwards, falling off the edge of the small patch of land the castle used to rest on. The fires couldn’t be seen, and smoke was gliding upwards, coming off of the red debris. Jazz didn’t care. Not about any of it. Danny never came out.

The older teenager dropped down into the co-pilot seat and switched the control of the Speeder over to her. She dropped the shields and rushed forward. “Woah!” Tucker exclaimed as he was pressed back into his chair. “Careful!”

“This thing has sampling graspers, right?” Jazz demanded.

“Well, yeah, but I don’t think it’s--”

Jazz found the button for it and hit it, extending two graspers and guided them over the boulders. 

* * *

Vlad waited a few moments more after the terrible sounds of destruction and collapse had stopped. He looked up to find that the pieces of broken stone had completely buried them. The only thing that kept them safe was the pink dome he had placed around them. He didn’t know how far they were buried. If he removed his shield to turn intangible or blast the boulders away, it could collapse before he could do anything. 

He glanced down at Daniel. If he wasn’t so close to the boy, he would say that he was calmly asleep, but his eyes were moving vigorously under his closed eyelids. He must be dreaming. Maybe remembering. Hopefully that latter. 

The stones shifted above them, and Vlad concentrated fully on his shield, reinforcing it. It was the strongest shield he had ever produced, even though he was still in human form.  The green light of the Ghost Zone peeked through a sudden gap in the rocks, and that gap grew wider and wider. Eventually, Vlad could see the whole picture. The Specter Speeder had it’s sampling graspers extended and was gradually removing the boulders one or two at a time. Now that he could fully assess the situation, Vlad broke his shield and pushed it outwards in a ring around him and Daniel. He pushed his hands slowly outwards, moving the shield away from them both. The shield shoved the debris away, and once it was far enough away from them, he dropped the shield all together. 

“Is he okay?” Jasmine’s voice demanded through the loud speaker aboard the Speeder.

Vlad nodded. “He’s alright. Unconscious, but alright. I think he hit his head.”

Vlad called forth his powers and transformed. He got to his feet and then bent down to pick up the boy. Vlad held him close to his chest and glided up from the ground. He phased through the bottom of the Specter Speeder and landed on the floor inside. 

“What happened?” a small voice wondered.

Vlad glanced behind him as he gently placed Daniel on the floor. Samantha had awoken and was looking around confused.

“You got knocked out,” Tucker began. “Then Danny let out his Ghostly Wail, and the whole place went down.”

Jasmine dropped down onto the floor and took her brother’s pulse. She couldn’t help but smile and chuckle in relief at the strong heartbeat that greeted her fingertips. 

She didn’t remember making the decision to do it, but she did it anyways. She wrapped her arms around Vlad. “Thank you for keeping my brother safe,” she breathed.

Vlad tensed at the girl’s embrace. When she let go, Vlad cleared his throat. “We should get him home. It’s almost sunrise.”

Tucker transferred control of the Speeder back to him and was about to turn around when he spotted something floating off to the side. It must have somehow survived the wreckage: the red scepter’s mould. Tucker readied the Speeder’s guns and delivered a powerful blast to the mould, shattering it to pieces. He looked back at Sam, Vlad, and Jazz. “Just in case,” he said. 

* * *

Tucker pulled the Speeder into the Fenton Works lab and shut it down. “You two head on home,” Jazz invited as she took Danny into her arms. “Thanks for your help.”

“Of course, Jazz,” Tucker dismissed.

“He’s our friend. We wouldn’t miss the chance to help him even if we were locked in jail,” Sam added.

“Jazz?” a new voice called. “Jazz, is that you?”

“Crap! It’s my mom!” Jazz gasped. “We must’ve woken her up coming back in!”

Sam shoved Tucker back into the Speeder, and the two ducked down onto the floor of the cockpit to hide. 

“I’ll take Daniel up to his room,” Vlad offered, holding his arms out.

Jazz had the awkward exchange of passing the grown man the long and thin fourteen-year-old, and then Vlad turned them both invisible. 

“What’re you doing up this early, Jazz?” Maddie wondered, her face coming into view from the stairs.

“Just couldn’t sleep,” she said. “Decided to pace the house till I got tired again.”

Her mother nodded. “Then I must’ve just heard you because I thought I heard the Speeder’s engines.”

Jazz shrugged. “Maybe you dreamed it?” she suggested.

“Maybe.” Maddie held out her hand. “Come on up back to bed.”

Jazz nodded and took her mom’s hand. Maddie led her daughter back up the stairs, and Sam let out a breath that she didn’t know she was holding. “How on Earth did we pull that off?” she muttered.

Tucker huffed suppressed laughter. “No idea.”

* * *

Danny sighed peacefully and stretched out his legs. It took him a moment to remember what happened, but once his brain had processed it all, he shot upwards faster than a springed mouse trap. 

“Calm down, Daniel,” a calming voice greeted. “You’re just at home, in your bed.”

He looked towards the voice and found Vlad sitting in the chair at his desk. 

The next second, the door to his room burst open, and Jazz barged in. “Are you okay?” she demanded, closing the door behind her.

Danny’s brain seemed to be slow, but he remembered. He remembered Christmases and birthdays and New Years. He remembered those stupid sibling fights over toys, the TV remote or personal space. He remembered Sam and Tucker and all of their trips to the mall, movies, and arcade. He remembered the ghost fights and his battles with Vlad, but those battles didn’t seem to matter right now. Vlad had put aside his pride to help him. He didn’t lie to his family and try to keep him as his sick, twisted son.

It was all so overwhelming that his eyes began to burn.

Jazz rushed forward and instantly embraced her brother. “It’s okay, Danny,” she whispered over and over. In any other moment, Danny would have shoved his sister off, but he didn’t care to do so this time.

The door to Danny’s room was forced open again, and Vlad instantly turned himself invisible as a result. Maddie and Jack bolted inside and saw the siblings embracing each other. “What’s wrong, Danny?” Jack asked.

“Are you okay?” Maddie added.

Jasmine released her brother and sat down on the edge of his bed. Danny sniffed and wiped his eyes. “I…” he sighed. He looked up at his parents. “I-I remember.”

“Really?” Maddie and Jack both exclaimed. 

“Do you really remember, Son?” Jack wondered, kneeling down and putting a hand on Danny’s shoulder. 

Danny nodded. “Yeah.”

Vlad silently sighed and stood up. He walked to Daniel’s window and phased through it, transforming in mid-air. He had lost his chance. He built up as much of a relationship as he could with Daniel in the time he had, but now that he remembered everything, surely the boy wouldn’t want him around at all now. He guessed that all that was left for them was to go back to normal.

* * *

After breakfast, Danny managed to convince Sam and Tucker’s parents to get the two friends out of school so that he could see them. He knew that he just saw them yesterday, but he remembered now. It would be less like meeting them for the first time and more like seeing them for the first time in a long time. It wasn’t long before the two appeared at his front door. 

“Danny!” they shouted, rushing in so quickly that he didn’t have time to get out of the way, and they all went down onto the floor. 

“Careful!” Maddie scolded. 

“Sorry, Missus Fenton,” Sam laughed as she and Tucker got off of Danny. 

The three friends helped each other up, and Danny looked at Sam. He couldn’t explain this feeling inside of him now. It was a new one. Not something he ever felt for her before. 

He cleared his throat. “How’s your head?” he whispered.

Sam shrugged. “Fine.” She massaged the back of her skull. “Still hurts, but it’s alright.”

“Hey, guys?” Jazz called. “Can you meet me downstairs?” She gestured through the doorway that led down to the lab. 

The three of them nodded. Tucker picked up Danny’s crutch and passed it to him. Since he woke up this morning, Danny was feeling infinitely stronger. Since the obelisk released the rest of his soul, his regenerative ability must have been able to fully reactivate. He was mostly using the crutch to comfort and assure his parents, but there was a small part of him that was still afraid that he would fall over as he carefully descended the stairs to the lab. 

“What’s up?” Danny wondered when they finally reached the lab floor.

Jazz held up a Fenton Thermos. It was dented all over, like the ghosts inside were trying to force their way out. “Let me out!” Walker’s distinctive voice ordered.

Danny rested his crutch against one of the examination tables and took the Thermos from Jazz. Danny slammed it into the Ghost Portal’s receiver, releasing the ghosts. The Portal’s doors opened as several ghosts in body armor were sucked back into the Ghost Zone. The white blob that was Walker forced itself to a stop. Walker’s form fully solidified, and he pointed harshly at Danny. “I’ll get you, Phantom Punk,” he threatened. “I swear to you, that I  _ will _ one day bring you fully into the afterlife, and then I’ll take even that from you.”

Danny slammed the button on the side of the Portal, instantly closing the doors. “Yeah,” he sighed. “I’m sure you will.”


End file.
